Firefly Mk2 point 1: Pandora's Box
by BDM
Summary: The slip-space drive is on the fritz, so Alan Tyler and the new Serenity crew head for Pandora to find a suitable material for repairs. Unfortunately for them, the locals are anything but friendly... Sequel to Firefly Mk2: Prelude.
1. Puncture Repair

**FIREFLY Mk2.1: PANDORA'S BOX**

**Puncture Repair**

"Oh, for fuck's sake..." Alan snarled.

It had been a mere fifteen minutes since the Firefly-class transport ship, _Serenity_, had parted ways with the Sangheili assault carrier _Shadow of Intent_. For fifteen minutes, the crew had been testing the new slip-space drive which they had acquired in a deal with the Sangheili, and had been speeding through the swirling vortex that formed a slip-space passage. Even though the technology allowed them to travel at speeds beyond any science on Earth, it still took time to get anywhere of any significant distance.

Now, apparently, those upgrades had come at a price, for alarms sounded all over the ship, and red lights flashed on the pilot's console. For the Godzilla mutant known as Alan Tyler, the new captain of the _Serenity_, he felt that he should have known his stroke of good fortune in acquiring the slip-space drive was too good to be true.

"Tell me it's not as bad as I think it is..." he said, in a pleading voice to his android pilot, Bishop, who even now was wiping his lanky brown hair back as he surveyed the console.

"The engines are beginning to overload!" Bishop said gravely. "If we do not drop out of slip-space now, there is likely to be an explosion!"

"Well, drop out of slip-space then, damnit!" Alan barked. Bishop nodded, and within seconds the vortex had faded, returning Alan to the familiar view of twinkling stars suspended in the blackness of space that had become so commonplace to him for over a week. The mutant snarled in frustration, trying to keep his temper. He could not believe that this was happening to him; after his mission had got off to an incredibly bad start, he could not believe that his one stroke of good luck was now metaphorically spitting him in the eye.

"Woah, take a few deep breaths, Captain," came the Cockney-accented voice of Alistair, the gargoyle first mate. "You'll give yourself a heart attack, at this rate; if your lot get them, anyway."

For once, Alan did not feel inclined to argue. He knew that he had to keep a cool head and set a good example, something which he was certainly not used to doing. He tried to steady his temper before going to the intercom and opening a channel to the engine room.

"Rachel," he said. "How's the engine holding up?"

"_That was too close, Captain,"_ came the female voice of Rachel Tam, the ship's engineer. _"If we had gone any longer in slip-space, I'm pretty sure something would have gone kaboom."_ Her tone was unusually grave.

"What happened?" Alan asked.

"_From what I can tell,"_ Rachel replied, _"our conductors started overheating. They just aren't up to transferring the insane amounts of energy these new drives require. I guess the Elites just didn't have the right parts to hand."_

"I can just picture the look on José's face now," Alistair said, his beak twisted into a sneer. "He'll probably rant on about it being sabotage on the Sangheili's part."

"Yeah, well," Alan muttered. "With any luck he'll have the sense to stay in his cabin, unless he wants me to go through him like a dose of salts." He turned over to Bishop, who was poring over a star-chart on another screen. "In any case, we have no idea where the _Shadow_ _of Intent_ would be by now, so we can't count on them for replacement parts. Any ideas, Bishop?"

"I heard what Rachel said," Bishop replied. "I've been scanning for sites with suitable parts. If it's any consolation, the drive itself works, for we have covered a much greater distance in our short time in slip-space than we ever did in the whole week we were flying on our own power. We could feasibly match the speed of any Sangheili vessels in slip-space. Unfortunately, all of the nearest colonies where we can get suitable parts are three months' flight away on our own power..." He paused for a moment, peering closer at the screen as it displayed a small, Earth-looking planet in orbit around a vast blue gas giant. He scratched his chin, looking at the screen thoughtfully.

"Now this is interesting..." he said, thinking aloud.

"What is?" Alan asked, leaning in to get a look at the display.

"Pandora, Captain," Bishop replied, pointing at the small moon.

"What's Pandora?" Alan asked. He was unfamiliar with the planets beyond Earth's own solar system, having being frozen in suspended animation during the decades of space exploration which led to the peoples of Earth charting and terraforming many planets in the Milky Way, many of which had been destroyed by the Covenant during the war.

"It is a moon of the planet Polyphemus, in the Alpha Centauri system," Bishop explained. "It is the site of an old mining operation which took place before and during the early years of the Earth-Covenant war, and the only known planet in the galaxy where the resource known as Unobtainium can be found."

"Unobtainium?" Alan asked, his tone full of scorn. "You got to be fucking joking. Whose bright idea was that name?"

"It was a completely unknown element, Captain," Bishop explained calmly. "The name is merely a placeholder which was never removed. What we managed to discover about it, however, was extraordinary. It may be just the substance we are looking for."

"How do you figure?" Alan asked.

"As it turns out," Bishop said, with a tone that sounded almost like excitement, "Unobtainium is the galaxy's most powerful superconductor. Even in its raw state, it is capable of transferring incredible amounts of energy without ever coming even close to overheating. Naturally, such a substance was highly sought-after in the early years of the war. It would have enabled our scientists to fashion slip-space drives just like the Covenant's, allowing for near-instantaneous space travel without the risk of overheating the engines, and would have put us on more of a technological footing with them. The war would likely have been resolved much sooner, and more of Earth's colonies could have been saved, had we been able to acquire sufficient amounts of the material."

"So why didn't that happen?" Alan asked. "Why does it still take years for Earth ships to get anywhere?"

"I was getting to that, Captain," Bishop replied. "However, accounts from those who returned from Pandora are conflicting and imprecise. The most that can be ascertained was a disagreement with the indigenous peoples of Pandora, which led to bloody conflict, and eventually the exile of the miners. There are those who maintain that, with the loss of Pandora, we nearly lost the war."

"Just as well we didn't, then," Alistair chimed in. "We were damn lucky that the Sangheili got some sense into 'em and came over to our side. Mind you, that's not stopped people like José from holding a grudge; not without reason, like."

"You think he's ever going to tell us what happened to make him like that?" Alan asked.

"Not bloody likely, Captain," Alistair said, shrugging.

"Anyway," Alan said, turning back to Bishop. "So this Unobtainium can help us get the slip-space drive working again, and keep it working?"

"It is a distinct possibility," Bishop said. "With the size of the _Serenity_ taken into account, we should not need a lot of the substance. If we are careful, we can get the amount we need and leave Pandora before we attract the attention of the Na'vi."

"How long until we reach Pandora?" Alan asked. "We can't risk the slip-space drive again, that much is obvious."

"It is not a long journey from here, Captain," Bishop replied. "Only a few hours under our own power."

"Right," Alan said. "Get us there as quickly as our engines will allow."

"Roger," Bishop replied, steering the ship in the direction of the distant planet. Alan headed back to his cabin, still not believing the stroke of bad luck that he had just suffered. It seemed that, no matter what he did, fate seemed determined to trip him up in every way possible. He sighed as he rolled over onto his bunk, figuring that he might as well try and get a couple of hours worth of sleep before he had to tackle this latest problem.

0

Hours passed, and Alan found it harder to keep himself occupied. He was eager to get to Pandora, not just for the necessity of the Unobtainium, but also for the chance to explore a new world for the first time in his life. He had been to Io very briefly prior to the end of the war, but he had not seen much of it, and there had not been much to see anyway. He was excited at the prospect of stepping onto a genuinely alien planet.

Eventually, the crew gathered in the cosy mess area and galley in the middle of the ship. With its wooden dining table and chairs, as well as the yellow walls with paintings of ivy creeping up them, it would be easy to assume that these rooms were part of someone's house rather than a spaceship. Even long after the previous crew had handed the ship back to Lofwyr, the décor had remained untouched. Now Alan, Alistair, the Hispanic mercenary José Lovano and the cheery engineer Rachel Tam were sat eating what looked like pieces of toffee cut into different shapes. Bishop was the only crew member absent; being an android, he did not need to eat.

"Please tell me we can get some real food on Pandora," Alan lamented, picking at the chicken-shaped pieces morosely. "I'm sick to the back teeth of these protein bricks. No amount of shaping and flavouring can convince me that it's actual food."

"Oh, I dunno," Rachel shrugged. "I find that if I close my eyes and put plenty of flavourings into it, then it tastes somewhat like oatmeal or tuna or whatever it is I was after."

"Nah, it doesn't," Alistair replied. "It really doesn't. It always tastes to me like bricks of snot." At this, Rachel made a gagging noise. She had been on the verge of swallowing another piece of protein substitute, and was now looking slightly creeped-out by the direction the conversation was going.

"What makes you so sure of that comparison?" Alan asked wryly.

"Well," Alistair replied, ruffling his brown hair, "let's just say that I learned from a very early age not to take anyone up on a dare."

"Is this regular dinner conversation among non-humans?" Rachel asked, now looking a bit nauseous.

"Hey," Alan said, pointing at Rachel with a sharp claw, "there's no need to be all polite around me. It's safe to call me a monster; I won't bite you for it."

"Nah, mi amiga," José suddenly chimed in. "He's just going to slash you open and feast on your guts."

"That I'm saving for you," Alan retorted, showing his rows of sharp teeth with a grin.

Rachel rolled her eyes and tutted disapprovingly. She stood up and walked back to the engine room, muttering "Men".

"Okay..." Alan breathed, turning back to José, "now that we've managed to completely disgust our engineer, I've been meaning to talk to you about what happened on the _Shadow of Intent_. It's best we sort this out now."

"Just forget it, boss," José said, dismissively. "As long as I don't see another Elite in the next hundred years, you won't get trouble out of me."

"That's not good enough," Alan said sternly. "I don't know if you've been paying attention, but a pretty big part of this mission is meeting with a group of Elites who are on the same mission as us. I need to know that I'm not going to get a repeat performance from you."

"Well, I don't know if _you've_ been paying attention, puto," José retorted spitefully, "but we were almost made extinct by the split-faces. Maybe you just slept through it all, but I didn't. You're making your own funeral if you trust an Elite."

Alan could kind-of see where José was coming from; he was sure that he would find it difficult to trust a race that had tried to exterminate him in the past. However, he also knew that José's blanket dismissal that no Sangheili could be trusted was simply not true. As he was about to forcibly point this out to his argumentative crewman, Bishop spoke over the intercom:

"_Captain, we have almost arrived at Pandora."_

Both Alan and José were silent for a moment, peering at each other with identical looks of distrust.

"We'll discuss this later," Alan finally said, in a low tone. "Get yourself ready and meet us in the cargo bay."

"Yes, sir," José replied, in a tone of equal contempt. He headed towards his cabin to pick up his favoured weaponry. Meanwhile, Alan and Alistair made their way onto the bridge.

"I'd watch out around him, Alan," Alistair said quietly. "Don't forget he's just a hired gun; someone will come along with a higher offer at some point, and then what will happen?"

"I'm not going to take any of his bullshit," Alan snarled. "He's got to know that I'm in charge of this ship, and I won't tolerate this crap he's been spewing out."

"I know how you feel," Alistair said, as the pair stepped onto the bridge. "Just be careful, or you'll have a mutiny on your hands."

Alan sighed, and looked out of the windows towards the small, lush-looking green and blue planet ahead, orbiting serenely around the huge blue gas giant Polyphemus. As Alan looked out of the window, however, he saw something else that caused feelings of alarm to pass through him. A large purple battleship, roughly three kilometres long, was in orbit above Pandora, which would be an intimidating sight for anyone on the planet's surface who happened to be looking up and saw the shape looming over them.

"It's a Reverence-class cruiser, Captain," Bishop calmly explained. 

"Covenant," Alistair chimed in. "I'm just glad José isn't here to see this. We'd never get him off the turret controls if he did."

"Is that right?" Alan asked. "But what's it doing here?"

"I have no idea," Bishop replied, analysing a scan of the ship on one screen. After a couple of seconds his expression brightened. "I can tell you that this particular ship does not belong to either the Covenant or the Sangheili." He pointed at the scanner readouts. Looking at them closely, Alan could see UNSC markings on the hull.

"I wonder..." Alan muttered. "Otto told me that Telek gave a ship to the UNSC, the _Transcending Vigilance_ or something like that. It left Earth to join Telek's fleet on his mission. That might be it. Makes me wonder where the rest of the fleet is though."

"You think we should give 'em a buzz, Captain?" Alistair asked. Alan looked thoughtful for the moment, before shaking his head.

"Not at the moment," Alan said. "I want to make sure we get the Unobtainium safely on board first. We'll try and speak to them later once we're done down there. Maybe they can help us fix the slip-space drive."

"We'll have to keep an eye on José," Alistair said. "From what I saw on the _Shadow of Intent_, some of the controls on those ships are too tall for humans to reach. There'll almost certainly be Sangheili on board that ship to operate them. If we come across any Sangheili down there, our mutual acquaintance is going to go crazy."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Alan said. "Is there a place we can land?"

"The safest place at present would be the site of the old command centre," Bishop replied. "The colonists used to refer to it as 'Hell's Gate'. We can find out more about what exactly happened here, and can locate any Unobtainium deposits from there." He looked over at Alistair, looking concerned. "I am afraid that the site will still be in daylight for another two hours."

"Marvellous," Alistair said wryly. "Looking on the bright side though, I might actually get a decent kip. I haven't had one since we started this trip. Space has thrown my body-clock out of whack."

"Bishop," Alan said, "how do you feel about going out on the surface?"

"I have no qualms, Captain," the android answered. "I am the only one who knows what to look for when seeking Unobtainium anyway. I am afraid I will not be of much help should we come across the Na'vi. I may be a synthetic, but I am no fighter."

"Like you say," Alan said, with a sly smile, "hopefully we'll be gone before they spot us."


	2. One Small Step for a Godzilla

**One Small Step for a Godzilla...**

The _Serenity_ was soon within Pandora's atmosphere, the strange mix of Firefly and Phantom design elements speeding over the tops of vast, lush rainforests and deep canyons. In the distance, strange floating shapes could be made out in the early-evening mist, though they were too distant to make out any concrete details. Bishop saw where Alan was looking and informed him that the miners had called them the Hallelujah Mountains, which contained significant quantities of Unobtainium, causing them to 'ride' on the strong magnetic fields in the area.

"Why don't we just get some from there then?" Alan asked.

"It is too dangerous to fly through that area," Bishop said. "The magnetic fields would disrupt our systems, and the strong winds make for very treacherous flying conditions. With this mist adding to our problems, I do not wish to risk crashing the _Serenity_ on one of those mountains. We must find a safer site."

Alan dropped the subject and looked ahead. Now that they were back in a planet's atmosphere, he noticed the new sounds that could be heard of the wind whipping past the ship and the faint roar of the jets. He had gotten used to the silence of the vacuum of space and found it a little hard to get used to the noise again.

Beside him, Alistair was looking outside with a look of great awe. As the mist parted for a moment, showing a dazzling sun low in the sky, the gargoyle looked like he was on the verge of crying.

"I've never seen daylight before..." he said quietly, his beak curled into a smile. "It's... beautiful..."

Almost as soon as he had said those words, there was a faint crackling sound, and gradually Alistair's green leathery skin and brown hair were changing a slate-grey colour, his whole body freezing in place. Even his dark blue leather armour was gaining the same stone colour and texture, and within seconds he was frozen as a stiff, stone statue. His expression was now locked in one of pure joy, gazing out of the window. Alan could not help feeling sorry for Alistair; he had missed the sight of sunshine on a planet too, and he felt bad that gargoyles were not able to fully enjoy it. Alan could not help but admire the view, and wondered if it resembled what Earth might have looked like billions of years ago.

Minutes later, the ship came to a halt over what Alan assumed to be the command centre. Much of the area was now overgrown, but a landing pad still survived. The grey buildings still stood, though half-buried by creeping vine-like plants. What had not survived the past few decades were several combat helicopters, large diggers and deforestation vehicles, which had succumbed to the ravages of time and the overgrowth. Some of them, however, seemed to have been the victims of sabotage rather than natural wear and tear, as the wooden handles of what looked like javelins could be seen sticking out of the wheels, though the rubber tyres were now largely rotten.

"Not a very welcoming place, is it?" Alan said.

"No, it is not," Bishop replied. "It will be even less so if the Na'vi catch us. We must move quickly."

He and Alan headed out of the flight deck and down into the cargo bay, Alan stopping to pick up his Technomantic whip and revolver on the way. José and Rachel were already waiting for them, with José now carrying a large ODST-issue rifle and magnum holstered. Alan wondered how the mercenary had been able to keep his weaponry after he had left the shock troopers; he could only guess it was stolen weaponry. Rachel was unarmed, for she would be staying to keep an eye on things on the ship and repair _Serenity_'s systems as best she could.

"I wish I was going with you, though," she lamented. "This is my first time on an alien planet too!"

"I know, Rachel," Alan said, "but you're our best hope of keeping this ship ticking over. Besides, someone has to make sure Alistair doesn't get chipped or something."

"The relationship between humans and gargoyles is almost symbiotic," Bishop commented. "They need us for protection as much as we need them."

"Yeah, whatever, professor," José said dismissively. "Can we just get out there and get this over with?"

"Not yet," Bishop said. "There is something we still need." With that, he began to search through the various large supply crates tied in various places around the cargo bay.

"I know they're around here somewhere..." he muttered.

"What is?" Alan asked. "What are we forgetting?"

"I should have mentioned this sooner, Captain," Bishop said, apologetically. "The atmosphere on Pandora contains nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, xenon, ammonia, methane and hydrogen cyanide. This composition is highly toxic to humans, causing death within two minutes of continuous exposure. We will need respirators."

"Won't Organiser G-1 render me immune to that gunk?" Alan asked. He remembered that he had never gotten sick in all the time since the experiments back in the early 21st century, and wondered if it could offer some level of protection against the harmful atmosphere.

"There may be a faint possibility," Bishop said. "However, I would not advise taking that risk until we know more for certain."

"What about you?" Alan asked. "Do androids even breathe?"

"My systems do require a steady input of oxygen," Bishop nodded. "So we do have our own equivalent of breathing. However, my systems can also filter out the harmful chemicals in Pandora's atmosphere, so we can have a respirator spare." With a flourish, he found the crate he was looking for and pulled out two Exo-Pack models of respirator. He handed one each to Alan and José and instructed them on using the equipment. The filtration unit clipped to their belts, and the face masks fixed themselves securely onto their faces once properly adjusted. They made Alan feel like he was constantly being smothered.

The trio stepped towards the large raised metal ramp that led outside. When all three were close to it, Bishop manipulated the door controls and a pair of sturdy metal doors slid shut behind them.

"Airlock is now secure, and matching interior pressure with exterior atmosphere," Bishop said, as he hit a switch and the ramp began to lower. "Captain, if you would care to take the first step..."

Shrugging, Alan stepped down the cargo ramp into the deserted compound. A cool breeze – the first which he had felt for several weeks – hit his exposed arms, feet and tail, and felt so refreshing that for a moment Alan almost took his respirator off to feel it on his face. Fortunately he remembered Bishop's warning and stopped himself in time. Outside, the stillness in the area became more apparent. Though the breeze kept the plant-life swaying, there were no animals in the area, not even any birds flying overhead, and certainly no signs of the Na'vi. It was as if every creature on Pandora shunned this place. All the same, Alan got the distinct impression that they were being watched.

Bishop pointed them in the direction of the large grey command building, and the trio walked across the landing pad towards it. Just beyond the building, Alan noticed what looked like a basketball court and a smaller building, along with what must have once been a garden which was now tangled and overgrown. It was as if the forest was swallowing all signs of civilization around them. The group eventually reached the front door of the building without incident and stepped into the airlock. Bishop examined the door controls, which did not seem to be active.

"There is no power running through the base," he said. "We shall have to force our entry." After a minute spent straining and pulling, the door eventually succumbed to their efforts to move it. The three of them were able to quickly step inside before the door automatically slid shut again on its spring mechanism.

"The generators may still function," Bishop mused. "I will try to find them. If there is any common sense in the layout of this building, I will find what I need in the basement level." With that, he left the large lobby area and headed down a corridor, leaving Alan and José to wonder what they were supposed to do. The only light came from the windows, casting a rather melancholy mood on the interior of the building.

"Well, amigo," José said, "I'm not standing around waiting for the professor to get back. I'm off exploring." Before Alan could stop him, he was already marching towards one of the other corridors, and Alan resigned himself to going with him. It was not as if there was anything else that could be done in this building at present.

After several minutes spent walking along the deserted corridors and staircases, they eventually found themselves in a large circular room on the top floor. Along the wall were what looked like seven or eight white coffins, each with a computer panel next to them and more computers in the centre of the room. Neither could make out what purpose this room served. Everything was still and quiet, and a thick layer of dust covered every surface.

"I've seen more action in a cemetery," Alan said. "It's strange that there's no sign of any fighting here. I guess the Na'vi never got into the compound itself."

"I've not seen anything we can take back to the _Serenity_," José chimed in. "Nothing here is transportable. I was hoping we could make some quick cash from clearing out this place."

Alan wasn't really listening. He had noticed the logo on one of the crates in the corner of the room. Studying it, he realised who it belonged to.

"Omak-Argon..." Alan breathed.

All of a sudden, there was a loud humming sound, and the lights suddenly came on. The computer systems sprang into life, using various holographic displays. Most of the screens, however, displayed nothing but error reports. Both Alan and José were caught by surprise, and spun around quickly to see if there was anyone nearby. Of course, the whole place was empty. Feeling silly, Alan contacted Bishop on his commlink.

"I take it you got the power back on?" Alan asked.

"_I certainly did,"_ Bishop replied. _"Unfortunately, the life-support system is beyond repair. You will have to keep your masks on."_

"What are you hoping to find here, anyway?" Alan asked. "Why go to all this trouble? It can't just be for the location of the Unobtainium."

"_I want to know the truth of what happened on Pandora,"_ Bishop said. _"The reports that are on record are too contradictory. Perhaps here all of the facts can be obtained."_

"Okay..." Alan said, rather skeptically. "Where are you now?"

"_I'm on my way to Operations,"_ Bishop replied. _"It should be on the top floor. Can you meet me there?"_

"I think we're already there," Alan said. "Or at least in the room next-door. We're on the top floor anyway." There was a pause on the other end of the line, as if Bishop was contemplating something that Alan hadn't thought of.

"_Very well,"_ Bishop eventually said. _"I'll see you there shortly."_

"He'll see us shortly," José said in a sarcastic tone. "I feel so much safer already."

"Shut it, José," Alan said, tiring of the mercenary's attitude problem. The two proceeded into the next room, where they found what they assumed was the operations centre, full of various workstations and holographic displays. A large display in the centre was now displaying a flickering map of the surrounding area, which did not seem to consist of anything but trees. Lined against one large circular wall was a row of windows, all of them barely peering out over the tops of the immense cluster of trees that spread as far as the eye could see.

Presently, Bishop appeared in the room. He nodded at the group before crossing to the map display. Before Alan could say anything, he was already at work on the barely-functioning console, pulling up a variety of maps of different areas in the surrounding jungle. As Alan watched the displays, he saw large dark patches located underneath the ground on some of them. Bishop was in the process of wirelessly downloading the displays to his commlink, muttering under his simulated breath. Finally, after several minutes of this, Bishop addressed the others.

"I have downloaded all maps of the charted regions of Pandora," he said. "I have focused on the sites that contain promising and accessible Unobtainium deposits. With some extra study I can find a site where it will not take us long to get what we need. With any luck we can be gone by nightfall."

"Good," Alan said. "Anything else you want to look at while we're here?"

"Now that you mention it," Bishop said, prompting José to groan, "there is something which I want to look into. I heard rumors about a certain project that was taking place on this planet, one which was said to be top-secret. Apparently, very few in the company knew about it, and I want to see if there is any truth to these stories."

"Well," Alan said, "the room José and I just came out of has some weird stuff in it. Something was definitely going on in there. That may be worth a look." He pointed Bishop in the direction of the room with the capsules, and the android moved away to investigate. Alan watched him go, leaning against one of the terminals.

"What do you think it is he's looking for?" he wondered aloud.

"Dunno, and don't care," José shrugged. "We're wasting our time here. I don't fancy sticking around and finding out if these Na'vi are as irate as he says they are."

"Never figured you to be the sort to run from a fight," Alan said.

"Hey," José said, indignant, "I don't know what you think of me, gringo, but I happen to like being alive."

The next several minutes were spent in silence. In spite of everything, Alan couldn't help but feel that José had a point. They'd already spent too much time at the base; he knew that they would have to be pushing on, for it would be dark soon. At last, Bishop walked back into the operations centre.

"Fascinating..." he was muttering, staring at his commlink. "Most fascinating..."

"I'm going to regret asking this," Alan said, "but what's so interesting about this place that we had to lose so much time waiting for you to finish picking through the files in this place?" His tone spoke of a great deal of impatience. In spite of this, however, Bishop showed no signs of losing his temper, even though Alan wondered if he was capable of feeling anger.

"For one thing," Bishop replied, "I have learned that the Avatar program did in fact exist."

"What's an Avatar program when it's at home?" Alan asked.

"I will tell you about it on the way to our next destination," Bishop said. Perhaps he had sensed that Alan's patience was wearing thin, and had decided that they had to move as quickly as possible. "Suffice it to say that, if I'm right, it had something to do with what happened here on Pandora."

"So where to next?" Alan asked, sounding relieved to be away from the command centre.

"From looking at the charts," Bishop said, "I have deduced that we should look for the site of what was once the place the Na'vi called 'Hometree'. There is a large Unobtainium deposit there, and the miners were in the process of establishing a quarry there. We may be lucky and find the amount we need with minimum digging. I also propose that we take a shuttle and have Rachel drop us off at the site, for there is nowhere we can land a ship in that area."

"Right," Alan said. "Let's just go quickly. The sooner we can get this done, the sooner we can restart our actual mission."

With that, the three of them started to head for the door to the staircase. However, as Alan turned to leave, something caught his eye through the window. He turned to look, but whatever it was had gone. He could have sworn that, for a moment, he had seen something amongst the leafy branches of a tree, watching him with vivid yellow eyes.

"What's the hold-up, Captain?" José's irritable voice asked, bringing Alan back to reality.

"I just thought I saw something," Alan replied off-handedly. "Might have been just the wind."

"From what I hear of this planet," José said smarmily, "something's always watching you. Scared of the Na'vi? Or are you the type to not back down from a fight?"

"Touché," Alan grumbled, following the others out of the building.


	3. Turning Native

**Turning Native**

Alan began to regret asking Bishop about what exactly the Avatar program was, for it was the only thing the android would talk about. Even as he, Alan and José re-entered the _Serenity_ and talked Rachel into piloting one of the shuttles to take them out to Hometree, Bishop still insisted on poring over the files he had recovered. It turned out that most of them were from a video-journal, which Bishop insisted on playing segments of for Alan to hear.

As the landing party boarded Shuttle One and Rachel took the pilot's chair, Alan had to admit that he was getting a bit tired of Bishop's insistence on him listening to the files. He said that it would almost certainly shed some light on what had happened on Pandora, and how the mining operation had failed first time around. It turned out that the Avatar program was the key to it all. In the end, Alan decided to humour Bishop and hear him out, even as the shuttle left its small docking bay and set off over the treetops. Bishop now had a small mining pick and cutting laser clipped to his belt, while José had a sack for carrying the samples.

It turned out that the Avatar program was a top-secret project created by the Utah Foundation of Bio-Organic Research, Kiryuu Knight's own company. On Pandora, the project was headed by Dr. Grace Augustine, a top botanist, geneticist and cultural enthusiast, not to mention the leading authority on Pandora and the Na'vi. The pods that Alan had seen were in fact psionic resonators, allowing someone inside the pod to literally transfer their own mind into the body of an Avatar. Said Avatar was a simulacrum of the Na'vi, created through the genetic engineering of both Na'vi and human DNA. As a result, each Avatar was genetically encrypted to the person who had donated their DNA towards the Avatar's construction, so only they or genetic relations could pilot it.

In the early years of the human operation on Pandora, the Na'vi had made every effort to dissuade the humans from their mining. They routinely attacked the miners and the soldiers sent to guard them. Disappearances during scouting missions were rife, and those that vanished usually reappeared the next day, strung up outside the command compound. On some occasions, only parts of them remained. The idea of the Avatar program had been not only to allow humans a form of disguise, they were also intended to be used to speak to the Na'vi on their own terms, and make negotiations with them much easier, something which must have appealed to the higher-ups in the Utah Foundation and Omak-Argon, who seemed to be behind the operation on Pandora. As it turned out, the Na'vi were quick to catch on to the presence of imposters in their midst; even on the rare instances they tolerated an Avatar's presence, they showed themselves to be fiercely territorial and unwilling to budge from their homes, places which unfortunately rested above huge Unobtainium deposits.

"Gee..." Alan said, sardonically, upon hearing this. "Where have I heard _that_ before?" Earth's history was still very fresh in his mind.

Bishop then showed a series of video diaries all belonging to the same person; Jake Sully, a crippled ex-marine who became an Avatar pilot when his brother Thomas, the intended pilot, was killed by a mugger. In his first entry, taken shortly after his first experience in an Avatar, he looked like a typical shaven-headed, white-skinned all-American grunt, though his accent betrayed hints of an Australian birth:

"_I can't begin to tell you how great it feels to be able to walk again. As soon as I was able to, I was straight out into the courtyard before any of the doctors could give me a proper check-up. I felt like I could run forever. It's also a big relief to be able to see around Pandora without the need for a breathing mask!_

"_It's pretty funny, seeing how everyone has to crane their necks to get a look at me, for once. Something I don't get is that the Na'vi have those weird little tentacles under their braids. I always thought they just liked having stupid hair, but what's it really covering? Not even Gracie seems to know for sure."_

Most of his entries afterwards consisted of the various day-to-day experiences he had working alongside Dr. Augustine in the Avatar program, which Bishop skipped through for Alan's benefit. He paused whenever it looked like Jake was talking about something important. As the entries progressed, Alan noticed that the pilot's appearance was getting steadily shabbier, as if he had forgotten how to shave or had forgotten the concept of personal hygiene:

"_The Na'vi let me inside Hometree! Turns out this is just one tribe of many; I think they said they were called the Omaticaya. They told me they had never seen a 'warrior' of the dreamwalkers; their term for Avatars, I guess. The Na'vi who found me, Neytiri, was going on about how she only spared me because of a sign from 'Eywa'. According to Grace, that's the name of their chief god or whatever. Turns out they hate Avatars almost as much as they hate humans. Whatever, fruit-loops; I'm to walk, talk and think Na'vi now if I want to stay in their good books, and that's all that matters..."_

"_Quaritch has got me on a new mission. He wants me to check Hometree for any kind of structural weaknesses that the security can use to their advantage should push come to shove. I don't think Grace would be happy with what the Colonel's got in his head, but he says it's all purely for deterrent purposes and has promised to pay to have my legs restored if I'm successful. I've gotta admit that's a very tempting offer..."_

"_I talked Eytucan into letting Grace back into Hometree, and continue teaching English to the Na'vi. The kids really seem to like her. Meanwhile, Neytiri is keeping the lessons coming fast and hard. She calls me 'skxawng', which means 'moron', and as for Tsu'tey..."_

"_I think Grace suspects that I'm in cahoots with Quaritch. She's kept me, Norm and Trudy here at this outpost in the Hallelujah Mountains for the past few days, doubtless to keep us away from him and Selfridge..."_

"According to the database," Bishop explained, "Miles Quaritch was the commander of the UNSC detachment stationed on Pandora, and Parker Selfridge was Omak-Argon's chief executive on the site. Selfridge's account of the events on Pandora has never been made public, but I know that he was fired from Omak-Argon shortly after returning to Earth." He fast-forwarded to an entry taken some months later:

"_It's been three months now since I came to this planet. Neytiri and I have grown real close, and I've been forgetting to keep this thing updated._

"_There's a new problem. We heard word a few hours ago that Harvest got destroyed. The guys responsible call themselves the Covenant, these bad-assed aliens that want to blow us all to kingdom come. They won't say why, of course, but they were nice enough to leave us a note; 'Your destruction is the will of the gods, and we are their instruments'..._

"_Quaritch is getting desperate. The news about Harvest seems to have hit him pretty hard. We're all expecting an attack from this Covenant, and getting the Unobtainium has become even more urgent than before. I keep hearing how it's going to be necessary to fight them, but it's all a load of technobabble bullshit. All that matters is that aliens want to blow us up, and we need the Unobtainium to fight them. It means I've now got a deadline that's approaching real fast._

"_The Na'vi wouldn't be bothered by any of this, of course. Those tentacle-things I was talking about literally let 'em plug into the flora and fauna out here. I'm now bonded to an Ikran – a Mountain Banshee – which has secured me a place among the Na'vi people. I've done all I can to win their trust, but in spite of everything I think it's all been for naught. It's obvious that the Omaticaya will never leave Hometree. Why should we try to force them? I'm going to tell Neytiri everything tomorrow..."_

The next – and indeed last – entry wasn't recorded until several days later. Jake's appearance was now rather alarming; although he had made attempts to clean himself up, his eyes now had a wild, staring quality to them. Indeed he looked half-mad, and Alan could not help but feel unnerved.

"_It's all over... That fucker Quaritch is dead, and his little army got wiped out by Eywa herself. We took losses on our side as well, including Trudy and Tsu'tey. Shame I didn't get to see Neytiri plug Quaritch full of arrows. He deserved a lot more pain, after what he did to the Na'vi and to Grace..._

"_Selfridge and his corporate stooges have been banished from Pandora, and no humans will be permitted to live here now. Only Norm and a few others have been allowed to stay, but I can't see them staying here for long. Pandora is no place for a sky-person; Quaritch and the rest demonstrated that really well. Selfridge told me he would spread the word about Quaritch's actions to the public, but I can see the fangs behind his smile. He's going to sleaze his way out of responsibility for this one; I can see it happening._

"_Not that the human race matters to me now. Fuck the lot of 'em. They can all go and get themselves wiped out by the Covenant, for all I care. If the damage they caused here is any sign of what they're going to do to win this war, then I want no part of it. Nothing excuses what happened here. If the Covenant wipes out every human in this galaxy, that's no business of mine now._

"_Anyway, no matter what happens tonight, this will be my final entry. I'd better sign off now; I don't want to be late for my own birthday..."_ With that, he signed off.

"Wow..." Alan said, bemused. "Wasn't he over-reacting just a touch?"

As Alan looked over at the others, his eyes fell on José. The mercenary's look was one of pure disgust. He looked as if someone had defecated right in front of his eyes. Alan had never seen him look so repulsed before, not even when the topic of the Sangheili was broached.

"Fucking piece of crap..." the Hispanic snarled.

"Come again?" Alan asked.

"Him," José replied viciously, pointing at Bishop's commlink. "That Jake Sully idiota. It's all his fault... All those people the Covenant killed, and it's all his damn fault..."

"Bishop..." Alan said. "Is that the answer you wanted?"

"From these records," Bishop replied, "I'm afraid the only conclusion I see is the one that José reached. Jake Sully apparently betrayed everyone, and prevented our access to Unobtainium for the sake of the natives. Had the substance been acquired in sufficient quantities, I daresay-"

"Yeah, yeah," Alan interrupted. "I remember you telling me all about that."

"That son of a bitch!" José suddenly yelled. "I hope he got chewed up by the beasties here, for if I see him he's fucking dead!"

"Will you go vent somewhere else?" Rachel called from the pilot's seat, irritated. "We're almost at... Oh my God..."

Alan moved to the pilot's seat to get a better view of what Rachel was looking at. In front of him was a scene of total disarray. A gigantic tree stump could be seen, the huge roots splintered. Beside it lay what remained of a huge fallen tree, only now starting to decompose. Just looking at it, Alan guessed that it must have stood at hundreds of feet tall when it had been in its prime. The area around this fallen tree looked decayed, as if something was preventing new growth there.

"Jesus..." Alan breathed. "There's been quite a fight here."

"Yes..." Bishop said, joining Alan by the pilot's seat and peering at the commlink. "This was Hometree, the site that the Na'vi had called their home. According to these, Quaritch ordered that the tree be felled so that the miners could access the Unobtainium deposit underneath."

"I don't get it..." Alan muttered. "That was nearly thirty years ago. Why's nothing grown here since then?"

"Let me see..." Bishop frowned, looking over more of the files for a moment. "Yes, Dr. Augustine theorized that Hometree was a key part of Pandora's bio-organical network. The destruction of the tree caused incredible damage to the network; perhaps that is why it is taking so long for the area to heal from the conflict."

"You're not going to tell me what the hell a 'bio-organical network' is, are you?" Alan asked.

"Not if you do not wish me to, Captain," Bishop replied, with a half-smile.

"Good," Alan said. "Rachel, find a space for us to drop. José, Bishop, let's get ready in the airlock."

"Wow..." Rachel just breathed, as the others slipped their breathing masks back on. "I mean... That entire tree..."

"I know," Alan said simply. "We'd better move quickly; I hate to think what will happen if the Na'vi catch us here. We'll signal when we're ready to go, Rachel. Just fly around the area until then."

"Roger, Captain," Rachel said. The others squeezed into the tiny airlock area. After a minute, the doors slid open, as the shuttle hovered a few feet above the parched ground. Alan, José and Bishop dropped from the airlock and landed on the ground below. Rachel flew the shuttle away as Bishop led the way into the midst of the tangled, twisted roots.

By now, the sun had set, and the area was becoming coated in a blanket of darkness. Alan was now starting to get very worried. It had taken them longer than he had hoped to reach Hometree, and now he couldn't help glancing around nervously, expecting an ambush from the darkness at any moment. Beside him, the others pulled out flashlights as the darkness became thicker. Soon they were walking through the twisted roots, eventually emerging into a large open pit. Some vestiges of roots were still poking out of the floor, rotting away. Though there was a bright moon overhead, it did not do much to light the pit, as most of it was concealed in the shadow of the destroyed roots looming overhead. Alan also noticed several small tunnel entrances leading away from the pit. He guessed that some sort of burrowing animal had made them, though they were large enough for someone to fit inside if they stooped.

Bishop was examining the jagged walls of the pit carefully. Alan wondered what it was he was peering so intently at, until he saw that part of the wall actually started to shine when he pointed his torch at it, as if there was a polished metal buried in the rock. Eagerly, Bishop unclipped the small mining pick and cutting laser from his belt and within minutes had hacked out a piece of the buried metal. He held it up in his hand for Alan and José to see.

"This, Captain," he said, rather proudly, "is the Unobtainium we came here for."

"I'm sure it's very pretty, Bishop," Alan said, in a slightly snarky tone, "but do we need much more of it? I don't like the thought of being out here all night."

"We should not need too much more," Bishop replied. "With the size of the _Serenity_ taken into account, it should not take too long to gather sufficient amounts of the substance."

Time seemed to pass slowly as the group worked in the near-silence, the only sounds coming from the clinking sound of the pick striking the rock or the high-pitched whine of the cutting laser. Every now and then Alan thought he could hear a shuffling noise coming from somewhere above their heads, but when he turned to look into the gnarled roots he saw nothing. José too looked very tense, even as he held open the sack for Bishop to slip the samples inside.

"_What's taking you guys so long?"_ Rachel's impatient voice could be heard saying over Alan's commlink. _"I'm running out of fuel here!"_

"Bishop, how much longer?" Alan asked.

"Almost done, Captain," Bishop replied. Even as he spoke, he was chipping away the last pieces of Unobtainium ore that it seemed he could reach. The vein had proved to be surprisingly easy to cut the ore from, and Alan felt that the group really needed to be counting their blessings. With a flourish, he dropped the last of the samples into the sack. Alan looked at it with a dubious expression.

"You sure that's all we need?" he asked. "It doesn't look like very much to me."

"That was the beauty of Unobtainium, according to the research notes," said Bishop. "Not much would be needed for a small ship. Of course, much more would have been needed if the UNSC planned to implement it in the fleet during the war. We will need to find a facility where we can smelt and refine the ore, but once that is done and the necessary modifications are made to the slip-space drive, we're 'scot-free', as you might say."

"There's something to look forward to," Alan said, as José tightened up the sack. The ore was surprisingly lightweight; José could lift it with no effort. "Right, let's get to a clear spot and-"

He had been about to say that they would contact Rachel once they were in the clear. However, his next word became a sudden grunt of pain and he lurched forwards. Out of the darkness above them, something had struck him in the back. As Alan collapsed to the floor, Bishop and José saw it was actually a large wood-and-stone arrow, about the size of a javelin, sticking out of his back.

All of a sudden more arrows began shooting out of the darkness. Bishop dragged Alan behind one of the roots, while José dived behind a similar root nearer to one of the tunnel entrances. Arrows were flying at them from all directions, and shouts and strange calls could be heard from the roots overhead. Clearly the three of them were surrounded.

To make matters worse, Alan suddenly started twitching violently, his eyes rolling into his head as he started having a violent seizure. Bishop looked over to José, who blind-fired with his assault rifle into the roots, but of course hit nothing. Mercifully he still had the sack of Unobtainium with him.

"Run!" Bishop called. "Get the Unobtainium back to the ship!"

José was hesitant at first, but in the end didn't protest. He fired into the roots again, and dived for cover into the tunnel as more arrows flew past him. Once in cover, he stopped to look behind him briefly as he saw Bishop slowly come out from behind the root, raising his arms in surrender, and with large, dark figures slowly coming down the sides of the pit, bows and arrows trained on him. Sure that those same figures would be investigating the tunnel soon, he ran as fast as his legs could carry him.

0

Hardly daring to believe that he had left two of the crew behind – one of them being his Captain, no less – José did not dare to look back as he charged down the tunnel. It seemed that the mission was already over before it had begun. Not that he particularly cared for the so-called Captain, of course; if he had known that co-operation with the Sangheili would be involved he would never have agreed to come along on this mission.

He remembered when he had been told of the mission and what it entailed. Malcho had agreed to loan Alan the new-model Spartan laser to give it a test run, on the condition that one of his own people go on the _Serenity_. José had been hired with others to reinforce Malcho's security personnel, and he ended up taking the job. José had wanted ten thousand credits, but Malcho had made him a better offer; two thousand up-front, and another fifteen thousand upon successful completion of the mission. That was not the sort of offer he could pass up easily. Now he could not help but wonder if this was Malcho's idea of punishment for some misdemeanor or another.

He began turning plans over in his head, now that everything had gone south. He gave serious thought to the idea of commandeering the _Serenity_, and heading back to Earth. Sure, it was a long flight, but that was what the cryo-tubes were for. He could persuade Rachel to go along with the plan; they were the only two humans on the ship, after all; perhaps they could display some solidarity. The gargoyle would never agree to it though; he would have to think of a way of getting rid of him. He ended up scrapping that plan when he remembered that he had absolutely no idea how to pilot a Firefly. That was a ship his ODST training had not prepared him for, mostly because it had been outmoded years ago.

In the darkness of the tunnel, he thought he could hear strange noises all around him. He kept telling himself that his mind was just playing tricks on him, since he was currently running in fear of his life. After a few minutes he finally saw moonlight coming through the exit of the tunnel ahead. As he ran, he tried to open a channel to Rachel through his commlink.

"Rachel?" he called. "Rachel? Can you hear me, mi amiga?"

"_José?"_ Rachel responded. _"What's going on down there?"_ The transmission was of a bad quality until José emerged from the tunnel. He found that he was back on the dead ground outside the roots of Hometree, and peered around him nervously at every shadow. He thought he could hear shouts and shuffling coming from the roots, and did not take his eyes off them, his gun raised.

"Rachel," he said into the commlink, "tell me you're not far away now..."

"_I've got a __fix on your position,"_ Rachel replied. _"I'll be there shortly."_

Within seconds, the shuttle was swooping into the area once again. It slowly moved down towards the ground and then halted, hovering about an inch over it. The airlock door in the side opened, and José quickly moved towards it. As he did so, there was a sudden loud, high-pitched cry, like a Native American battle cry, and José spun round. He was shocked when he saw several tall, dark figures in the shadows. He backed quickly into the airlock, his breath becoming more rapid in his panic.

"Go, Rachel!" he shouted. As he shut the door, several loud thudding sounds were heard as the arrows of the attackers slammed against the hull. Rachel gave a small scream and José was almost thrown off his feet as she banked the shuttle sharply upwards to get out of range of the arrows. Soon enough, though, they were clear, and José was eventually able to step into the main body of the shuttle, his face caked in sweat.

"What were those?" Rachel asked, alarmed. "Were they the Na'vi?"

"Best guess," José said.

"Did you see what happened to the others?" Rachel asked, concerned.

"Last I saw," José said, "those creeps had shot the Captain. The professor told me to run with the scraps we picked up." He dumped the bag full of Unobtainium ore onto a seat.

"Oh God..." Rachel said faintly. She quickly began peering into her commlink, and eventually brought up what looked like two ECG readings. One of them had almost flatlined.

"If they were the Na'vi, they'll both be dead by now," José said. "We could take the _Serenity_ and-"

"We're not going anywhere!" Rachel shouted, outraged, as if José had said something inexplicably vile.

"Eh?" José said dumbly.

"Our commlinks are able to monitor our heart-rates and our positions," Rachel said. "As long as we all wear our commlinks, we can all check up on each. Look," she continued, pointing at the ECG readings on her screen. "They're both still alive, and being moved. It's hard to tell where, though; there's a lot of interference. The Captain's is really weak though..."

"So you're saying we should go and get them?" José said incredulously. "You're crazy, muchacha. We'll be torn to pieces by those guys!"

"We can't just leave them!" Rachel howled. "We'll go talk to Alistair, and we'll think of something! The _Serenity_'s our only hope of saving them!"

José was about to say something, but instead he just let out a frustrated snarl and sat down on one of the chairs, rubbing his temples. He could not believe just how self-righteous Rachel was being right now, but then again she was the sort who would be inclined to rescue every cat stuck in a tree they came across. He could not see the sense in going on a rescue mission, not if there was a very strong chance that they would also get killed in the process. He didn't think he was being heartless, just practical.

After several minutes of flying, the shuttle reached the command centre again, and found the _Serenity_ waiting on the landing pad. Except it wasn't the only thing waiting for them there. For outside the ship were three tall, hunched figures, carrying plasma rifles and their faces covered with respirators. They were all dressed in similar ornate battle armour; two of them in blue armour, one in white. They were peering at the ship as if they were unsure what to make of it. The figure in white armour approached the entry hatch and banged on it, while the other two peered up at the shuttle as it moved to dock with the _Serenity_.

"Uh-oh..." Rachel muttered as she piloted the shuttle onto the extended landing arm. As soon as it landed, the arm retracted, locking the shuttle safely into its secure position.

"Waddaya mean 'Uh-oh'?" José asked. Rachel quickly tried to move into the ship as if it wasn't anything important. As she and José entered the cargo bay, however, the banging on the door sounded again, and muffled voices could be heard coming from outside. Sighing, Rachel crossed over to the door control and began to lower the ramp.

"What the hell are you doing, muchacha?" José said indignantly. "Who's out there?" He peered out of the small windows in the metal doors that separated them from Pandora's atmosphere. Coming up the lowered ramp were the three figures. This was his first time spotting them, and he now saw that they were Sangheili warriors. He turned to look at Rachel, his face in a tight grimace.

"Are you fucking crazy?" he half-shouted. "Those are fucking Elites! You're just letting them waltz on here as if they own the ship?"

Rachel said nothing, and closed the ramp once she was sure that the Sangheili were inside the airlock. In fact, it seemed as if she was making a deliberate effort to ignore everything José was saying or doing. This only served to make him more irritable, and for a moment he seriously considered attacking Rachel. Instead, he satisfied himself by returning to the window and throwing a one-fingered salute to the waiting Sangheili.

"Fuck off!" he shouted. "You're not welcome here!"

One of the blue-armoured Sangheili snarled, his mandibles quivering. He was about to open fire on the impertinent mercenary, but his superior in the white armour discouraged it. A loud hissing filled the airlock as the harmful toxins of Pandora's atmosphere were expelled, and then the metal doors slid open. The three warriors marched into the cargo bay, looking around them at the piles of crates in the room. José stared daggers at them, and looked more murderous when the white-clad leader of the squad moved closer to him.

"Are you the Shipmaster of this vessel?" he asked.

"It's called a Captain, split-face," José snarled. "And I already told you that you're not welcome on my ship! Now get out or I throw you out!"

"José!" Rachel shouted. "First of all, you're not the Captain. Second, don't be such a moron! Do you really want to piss off these guys?"

"What the fuck were you thinking, letting them on, anyway?" José spat back.

"Dierram era owt eseht kniht uoy od?" one of the Elites muttered to his companion, addressing him in their language.

"And if you have anything to say," José shouted, "say it in English!"

"José, this is no time to try to be clever!" Rachel snapped, in a surprisingly harsh tone for her diminutive frame. The Sangheili were evidently growing more frustrated; the blue-clad warriors even pointed their rifles at José.

"I just thought we could use a hand in getting the Captain back, that's all!" she finished.

"From _them_?" José spluttered. The white-clad Sangheili squad leader rolled his eyes and turned back to Rachel. The engineer had to admit that she felt positively dwarfed by the alien, and she tried not to tremble.

"I am to assume, then," the Sangheili said to her, "that you also have had trouble with the natives?"

"Y-yes," Rachel stammered. "Our Captain and our pilot were taken. I can track them and monitor their condition through my commlink, but we haven't a hope of getting them out ourselves!"

"I see," the Sangheili responded. "Our Shipmaster was also taken by the natives. They ambushed us and were able to take our Shipmaster while we were occupied with fighting them off. I told him he was being foolish, running on ahead..."

"So..." Rachel said timidly. "So you'll help us?"

"Since it seems that we share a common goal," the Sangheili replied, "you may tag along if you wish. However," he said forcibly, looking at José in-particular, "I want no funny-business, or we will teach you a lesson in respect which you will never forget."

José said nothing. Instead, an odd, strangled sort of noise came out of his throat. With one last resentful look at the Sangheili leader, he stormed off up the gantries towards the flight deck. The Sangheili leader sighed and shook his head.

"The scars never heal for some, I see," he muttered.

"Erm, excuse me..." Rachel chimed in. "I think we got off on the wrong foot. My name's Rachel Tam. I'm the engineer on this ship, the _Serenity_. My 'cohort', if you can call him that, is called José Lovano."

The Sangheili nodded. "My name is Aeko 'Ilsus, Special Operations Commander of the Sangheili forces on board the _Transcending Vigilance_."

"Is that the ship we saw in orbit?" Rachel asked. She began to walk slowly up to the stairs leading to the gantries, with the Sangheili following her.

"Yes," Aeko replied. "Our commanding officer informed us of your ship's arrival, no more than a few minutes after we set down on this planet. We intended to speak to you and learn your intentions after we had finished our scouting mission. The intervention of the natives hastened those plans somewhat."

"We've been out of the ship for a while, though," Rachel said. "Have you been outside _Serenity_ all this time? Weren't you afraid the Na'vi would catch you?"

"No," Aeko said, shaking his head. "They shun this area, for reasons unknown to us. We are safe here." They stepped into the corridor where the crew's cabins were located. "As I said, if your accomplice can keep his slanderous thoughts to himself, you are welcome to come with us, if you wish to save your Shipmaster and pilot."

"Thanks, Ae- erm, I mean, Commander," Rachel said. "It's a good thing our First Mate, Alistair, knows the basics in piloting a Firefly; aside from Bishop, the rest of us haven't a clue." She looked around her, looking puzzled. "Talking of which, where's Alistair, anyway? I'm surprised he didn't meet us in the cargo bay."

"If you're looking for Alistair," José then chimed in, poking his head out from the flight deck, "you're going to be waiting a while..."

For one horrible moment, Rachel thought that Alistair had somehow been smashed while they were away. She charged down the rest of the corridor and bounded up the small steps leading to the flight deck. Upon getting there, she found Alistair was intact, but was still frozen in stone. Aeko followed her on to the flight deck - José snarled again, but otherwise did not dare to raise an objection - and peered at Alistair, looking puzzled.

"It's... a statue," he said.

"I don't understand it!" Rachel exclaimed, shaking her head in disbelief. "It's been dark for well over an hour! Why isn't he awake?"

"Beats me, amiga," José shrugged. "Until he wakes up though, we ain't goin' anywhere."

"I don't understand," Aeko said. "What's so special about this statue?"

"I guess you've never seen a gargoyle before," Rachel sighed. "They're stone by day, and alive by night. He should have been up ages ago!"

"I thought dragons were strange beings..." Aeko chuckled. "Earth is a very strange place."

"No stranger than your face," José muttered. One of Aeko's warriors snarled, but Aeko held him firm.

"Sruovaf yna su od ton lliw mih gnillik," he said forcibly.

"Mih gnillik eb ton dluow spaceenk sih gnirettahs," the offended Sangheili muttered. José looked on the verge of making a retort, but seemed to think better of it as he moved down to the turret controls. It was clear that he was not comfortable with the presence of Sangheili on the ship; it brought back too many bad memories.

Presently a faint, high-pitched whining sound could be heard coming from outside. The sound grew louder and louder, until José saw a Phantom-class dropship landing outside, quite close to the _Serenity_. One thing that seemed odd about it, however, was that it was painted green rather than the usual purple.

"Our transport has arrived," Aeko said. "The rest of my squad will soon put these Na'vi in their place. We will try to locate our Shipmaster's position. Once your gargoyle friend has awakened, follow us as fast as you can."

"I see," Rachel said. "I'd better go get the door open then." With that, she ran out of the flight deck, with Aeko and his squad following close behind. José shook his head and walked back up to Alistair. He leaned against the flight control, peering at the frozen stone face.

"Wanna break out the deck of cards?" he asked sarcastically. The statue, of course, gave no response.


	4. When Diplomacy Doesn't Work

**When Diplomacy Doesn't Work**

For over an hour, all Alan knew was blackness. After he had been hit by the arrow, he had passed out, but only after a violent seizure where he had felt like every nerve in his body was on fire. For some time he had not seen or heard anything, until at last he started to come to. Everything had seemed so surreal that, for a moment, he was not sure it had actually happened. Slowly, he opened his eyes.

"Ugh..." he groaned. "That has to be the worst dream I ever..."

As he blinked and his eyes started to re-focus, he tailed off in his sentence. For he now saw that he was still outdoors, but not near Hometree like before. Instead, he was in what looked like a vast canyon, with large trees growing all around the walls. The area was still lit by moonlight, and some of the plants glowed strangely, casting an eerie luminescence on the area. He also noticed that he was stood bolt-upright against his will; he was tied to a wooden frame, his hands and feet shackled to the top beam and the floor of a wooden platform respectively. He jostled about a little, but his bindings held fast. Mercifully, his mask had not been removed, but his weapons had been taken away. He could see them on a nearby tree stump, along with Bishop's excavation tools and a military-issue assault rifle.

"Captain!" Bishop's voice said from his immediate left. "Thank God you survived!" Alan turned his head to see Bishop beside him, similarly bound.

"What the hell happened, Bishop?" Alan asked. "Where are we?"

"You were shot by one of the Na'vi's poisoned arrows," Bishop explained. "They coat their arrowheads in a nerve toxin that causes death in seconds to humans. Organiser G-1 must have spared you, though it took time to adapt your body."

"As for where we are," another, unfamiliar voice suddenly chimed in from Alan's right, "I'd say we're up shit-creek without a paddle."

Alan turned to look at the speaker. He saw that it was a human, also bound, and dressed in a fairly standard military uniform, complete with flak jacket with a high collar. His features were largely obscured by a respirator, though he had the look of a seasoned soldier.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I already told your Bishop buddy," the soldier replied, sounding amused, "but never mind. My name's Tomas Jimenez. No need to tell me who you are, Captain Tyler; Bishop filled me in on that much."

"Tom Jimenez..." Alan muttered. "Where have I..." Then he suddenly remembered where he had heard Tom's name before, and for a moment he felt elated.

"_The_ Tom Jimenez?" he asked. "The one who flies around in Telek 'Heros' fleet?"

"Er... yeah..." Tom replied, rather taken aback. "Have we met somewhere? No, I'd never forget a face like _that_..."

"Then it must have been your ship we saw in orbit..." Alan mused, ignoring Tom's comment about his appearance. "Otto 'Gamam sends his regards."

"Wait, what?" Tom asked, incredulously. "You've spoken with the Arbiter?" He leaned forward slightly to get a better look at Bishop. "You never mentioned that to me!"

"I didn't get to speak with the Arbiter personally," Bishop said. "In fact, I spent most of my time on the _Shadow of Intent_ unconscious while I was being repaired."

"Jesus..." Tom breathed. "I mean, Bishop told me you'd come all the way out here looking for Kiryuu Knight, but fancy having Otto's seal of approval!"

"I'm not doing this to win favors from anyone," Alan replied. "I'm just a fool who thought it was a good idea to bring Kiryuu back home."

"Join the club," Tom said, allowing himself a chuckle.

"Bishop didn't tell you we were also looking for Telek, did he?" Alan asked.

"Actually, he missed that part," Tom replied.

"You were starting to come around before I could get to that point," Bishop explained to Alan.

"Alright," Alan said. "So you're part of Telek's fleet; Otto told me that much. I didn't see any other ships in orbit though. So do you know where Telek is? I really want to have a word with him about this mission. Turns out he's got the same idea as me." He gained a strong feeling of foreboding when Tom shrugged.

"Honestly, I don't know," Tom said. "None of us in the fleet do. He suddenly took off on his own while we were in slip-space. Of course, Telek being Telek, he destroyed all of the trackers our ships had once upon a time, so we couldn't pinpoint him and he wasn't answering any hailing. So for about a fortnight now we've been trying to find him the old-fashioned way, scouting every planet as we go."

"Hence the reason you're on Pandora," Alan guessed.

"Yeah," Tom replied. "I drew the short straw to scout this place out. Bishop told me your slip-space drive got banged up, so you came down here looking for new parts. Dunno why you'd come to this hell-hole, mind."

"Unobtainium is the only material a suitable part can be made from," Bishop explained. "I only hope that José was able to get the ore we mined back to the ship safely."

"Not that it's doing us much good right now," Alan groaned. "How come we're still alive, anyway? I thought the Na'vi killed any intruders on-sight."

"I discovered a few Na'vi phrases in Sully's journal," Bishop replied. "I believe I was able to convince them to spare our lives for the time being. I am sure I asked them if we could see their leader, at any rate."

"What about you?" Alan asked Tom. "How'd they get you?"

"It's pretty embarrassing, actually," Tom said, wincing. "One of these little blue monkey-things on this planet snatched my ration pack. I chased it into the trees, and ran smack-bang into a group of Na'vi with very sharp sticks. Aeko's never gonna let me forget it; if he's alive, that is. I don't know why I'm still alive. Probably their idea of shits and giggles; let 'em think they've got a chance."

As Tom finished speaking, a new sound reached Alan's ears. Soft footsteps could be heard coming from behind the prisoners, gradually getting louder as they approached. Alan, Bishop and Tom tried to get a good look, but due to their bindings they could not turn far at all. They were sure that there was more than one person, however, and now the sounds of muttering reached their ears. It was a strange, alien language which they were speaking; as far as Alan was concerned, they might as well have been speaking in Swahili, for he did not understand a word. He heard one of the group move right behind him. A young man's voice could be heard, laughing and speaking in a mocking tone.

"I may have misheard," Bishop said, "but I think he just said that your tail is ridiculous."

Alan said nothing, but instead willed his long, reptilian tail to move. It suddenly flicked over to the left, and Alan felt an impact against it. The Na'vi behind him gave a startled yelp, and there was a thud as he was knocked to the ground.

"Looks like I found a use for it, though," Alan said, failing to suppress a smirk. Behind him, he could hear the small group of Na'vi speaking angrily in their native tongue. The one Alan had struck was picking himself up and screeching a number of angry curses.

Then there came a female's voice, much older-sounding than any of the other voices. It was also a strong, commanding voice, and it was rather angry. There were shuffling sounds, leading Alan to assume that the group was making a run for it. Someone was still around, however, for he heard footsteps approaching again. Finally, one of the Na'vi came into his view, walking to the front of the platform.

As it turned out, the Na'vi were humanoids that averaged around seven or eight feet tall. Their skin was blue, with odd markings on it that glowed slightly. They had small, thin tails, six fingers on each hand, large yellow eyes and small pointed ears. Though their hairstyles varied, their hair was a uniformly black colour, and they all had one long braid of hair; Alan remembered Jake Sully mentioning that this braid hid the tentacles underneath, used for some supposed connection to the wildlife, but he found that entire notion very hard to swallow.

This particular Na'vi seemed to be female, as she had a very feminine neckline. She was dressed head-to-foot in a ceremonial maroon-and-gold robe, and wore an ornamental head-dress over her braided hair. Her face seemed to be lined and showing signs of age, but her expression was resolute and somewhat spiteful; as she peered at the captives, her gaze seemed to drill right through them. She peered at Alan with particular ferocity.

"Sky-demon..." she snarled angrily. When she moved her lips, Alan noticed that some of her teeth were very sharp. "You had no right to attack my son that way!"

"You..." Tom stammered. "You speak our language?"

"I have not needed to speak in the tongue of the sky-demons for a long time," the Na'vi responded, a note of bitterness in her voice. "It was taught to me by one who proved herself to not be a demon, unlike so many others from the sky." She looked away for a moment, and Alan thought he saw an expression of sorrow flit across her face for a moment, but her expression quickly became resentful again.

"The others who we permitted to stay were weak," she said "They soon left our world. We vowed that no sky-demon would ever set foot here again, yet you persist in coming and scarring Eywa!"

"We do not wish for any trouble," Bishop said reasoningly. "We have what we came here for. If you will allow us to return to our ship, we can be on our way. You will never see us again."

"Lies!" the Na'vi shrieked. She actually grabbed Bishop's throat and moved as if to choke him. "You stink of one who has no soul! You would only bring more sky-demons down upon us! Why should we listen to a word you say?"

"Get your hands off him, you stuck-up cow!" Alan shouted indignantly. Tom muttered furiously, something about not antagonising the Na'vi, but Alan didn't care. He was tired of being polite; the only viable way to him seemed to be an aggressive approach.

"_You_ attacked _us_!" he continued forcibly as the Na'vi rounded on him. "We would have been gone by now if your lot hadn't decided to pick a fight! If that's the way your people treat outsiders, it's no fucking wonder you nearly got yourselves wiped out!"

The Na'vi's initial response was to hiss like a cat. She was looking at him so furiously, her eyes would have been shooting sparks if they could.

"Do not dare to speak of what you cannot possibly understand!" she snarled.

"Then _make_ me understand," Alan retorted, his expression severe and defiant. "You owe us that much, at least."

The Na'vi breathed hard for a moment, before turning away. It seemed that Alan had somehow got through to her. She took more breaths to steady her nerves, before turning to face Alan again. She still looked resentful at him, but when she spoke her tone was less fierce.

"The humans were not the first demons who tried to destroy us," she said. "Our ancestors still speak of it now; the pain and the destruction that the first demons brought down upon us..."

"Ancestors?" Alan asked. "What the smeg are you talking about?"

"I assume that she refers to their written records and history," Bishop mused. "Perhaps that is simply the term they use, for it is written by their ancestors." At this, the Na'vi gave an odd sort of snort, as if she had found something funny in what Bishop had said. She quickly reined herself in and continued speaking.

"The first of the demons came in many forms," she said. "It even used dreamwalkers, just like the humans, to deceive us. It wasn't until it was too late when we saw its true demonic self... We have no name for it in our tongue, but the ancestors remember it vividly... If Eywa had not risen to drive it back, then our world would have been destroyed by the golden demon of many faces."

"Golden demon of many faces?" Alan repeated. "That sounds familiar..." He knew of one creature that would fit her description, and it was then that he began to realise just how deeply the roots of the Na'vi's hatred of 'sky demons' lay. The light of understanding was also beginning to dawn in Tom's eyes; it seemed that he too had at least heard of the being Alan was thinking of.

"She doesn't mean..." he muttered. Meanwhile, the Na'vi was once again glaring at Alan with a look of unfathomable hatred.

"So do not take us for fools, sky-demon," she spat. "All who have come from the skies have sought to destroy us, and we will not allow that to happen. All sky-demons will pay the price for what they have done to us, for how they have tried to destroy Eywa."

"So why are we still alive?" Alan retorted.

"You will be made an example of," the Na'vi replied. "When the others demons see what has become of you, they will know that we will never let ourselves be destroyed. It is the will of my chieftain; my mate. You will die for the crimes of your black-hearted race!"

Even as she was speaking, however, a high-pitched whining could be heard over the treetops. As it grew louder, everyone looked up into the night sky to see glowing lights advancing closer as the sound grew louder. Seconds later, a green-painted Phantom swooped overhead, hovering above the canyon. Suddenly it fired from its plasma turrets, almost hitting the Na'vi and the captives. Clearly it was intended as a warning shot. Looking around him, Alan noticed that Tom had a smile on his face.

"Curse you..." the Na'vi hissed. She then ran deeper into the canyon, screaming "Curse all sky-demons!"

A shimmering purple light appeared underneath the Phantom, which Alan recognised as a gravity lift. Someone was being lowered slowly down the shaft of light. Upon touching the ground, it immediately ran over to the frame where the prisoners were tied. Alan saw that it was a Sangheili clad in what he recognised to be the white assault armour of a Special Operations Commander.

"Aeko!" Tom shouted, overjoyed. "Not a second too soon!"

"Shipmaster," Aeko replied calmly, as he worked to untie everyone's bonds. "You can't say that I didn't warn you about moving on your own in those woods."

"I know, I know," Tom said, wearily. "You can go ahead and kick my ass when we get back to the ship."

Aeko peered at Alan closely after he had freed Tom. "Are you the Shipmaster of the _Serenity_?" he asked, as he undid Alan's bonds.

"Yeah, that's me," Alan replied, taken aback at the apparent rescue mission. "You've seen my crew and my ship?"

"They are safe and well," Aeko replied. "I told them to follow us as quickly as possible."

As Alan was freed and he stepped off the platform, however, a new complication arose. The wailing battle-cries of the Na'vi sounded in the trees all around them, and Alan suddenly saw the outlines of what looked like giant birds, each piloted by a Na'vi, flying out of the surrounding trees and swooping towards the Phantom. The dropship fired in all directions, but it was apparent that it would be swarmed by the sheer number of the birds.

"_Blasted creatures!"_ came the voice of the pilot through Aeko's communicator. _"We will have to circle around the area to throw them off!"_

"Understood," Aeko replied. "We will move to safer ground as quickly as possible. Meet us there." As the Phantom was forced to flee the area, pursued by the bird-riders, Aeko freed Bishop from his bonds. All three captives rushed to the tree stump and grabbed their supplies, with Tom holding the assault rifle like a seasoned pro.

"Pretty careless of them to leave these here," Alan smirked. "Pride comes before a fall."

"You're really keen to pick a fight with these guys, aren't you?" Tom said.

"Hey, they started it," Alan retorted. "Besides, I don't think there's any way we can reason with those clowns. They're obviously completely crazy."

"As much as I hate to generalise," Bishop lamented, "I fear that Alan may have a point. Whatever has happened to the Na'vi in the past, they have allowed themselves to become blinded by bitterness and pride. Their words and actions have made that apparent to me."

"There is no way out in that direction," Aeko said, pointing in the direction the Phantom had come from. "We will have to try heading deeper into the canyon to find an exit."

"If we can get out without the Na'vi eating us alive," Tom chimed in. "I don't like it; there are too many places they could ambush us. Still, I guess we don't have a choice."

Aeko led the way deeper between the two walls of rock, with Tom bringing up the rear. Alan kept spinning around, peering into every shadow. He could not help but feel that he was being toyed with and that at any second the Na'vi would jump out from cover and strike them down. Bishop, as ever, remained calm and collected. The canyon seemed to close around them as the group made their way deeper inside, as if the rocks themselves intended to move in and crush them just as they thought they were on the verge of safety.

All of a sudden the canyon widened to form a sort of clearing; part underground and part open-air. At the far end of the clearing was another passage leading to the other side of the canyon. In the middle of the clearing was what liked a gigantic glowing tree, vaguely reminiscent of a Peking Willow, with long strands hanging from its many branches. Unlike the other trees, however, this one glowed with a white light that seemed to subtly change colour. The roots snaked everywhere across the canyon floor.

At the base of the tree, Alan spotted two strange-shaped mounds of green roots. The shapes did not look natural for this place, but then again little about the planet seemed natural. Still, his curiosity got the better of him, and he broke away from the group to get a closer look. The others followed him, peering around them cautiously.

"Uh, Alan?" Tom interjected. "I don't think now's a good time for sight-seeing."

Alan ignored him, and kneeled down next to the mounds. He proceeded to pull away some of the green roots, and then immediately wished he had not. For underneath the roots were two human bodies, unclothed and perfectly preserved. It would be easy to believe they were both merely sleeping, if Alan had not checked for their pulses. One body he recognised to be Jake Sully, while the other was a red-haired woman in her 40s that he did not recall.

"What the...?" Alan muttered. It seemed reasonable to assume that some unique biological phenomena kept the bodies preserved even decades after the death, but he wondered what had happened to Jake. Alan had assumed that the soldier had gone into the wilds somewhere as a hermit; he had not expected this.

"That's far enough, changeling," a voice suddenly called from somewhere to his right. He spun round to find what he assumed was the Chieftain of the tribe. He was a tall, well-built Na'vi, wearing what looked like tribal battle armour, made from bone and leather hides. He was carrying a long spear in one hand, and looking at them all sternly. When Alan saw his square-jawed face, he had the distinct impression that he had seen this person before.

"Step away from the Tree of Souls," the chieftain repeated, "and drop your weapons. You're completely surrounded." As Alan peered around into the canyon walls, he saw several Na'vi in the dim glow, skittering along the rocks and drawing their bows. He also realised where he had heard the chieftain's voice before, though it definitely sounded more aged.

"Jake Sully?" Alan asked. He proceeded to hide his initial shock with sarcasm. "What's the matter? Got a bit addicted to the Avatar program?"

The chieftain formerly known as Jake Sully glared at Alan with his cat-like eyes, as if Alan had said a rude word.

"That life doesn't mean squat to me anymore," he said in a tone that was almost boastful. "The Na'vi found a way to transfer my mind into my Avatar permanently."

"How wonderful for you," Alan retorted in a very sarcastic manner. "So the woman I saw earlier must have been Neytiri, right?"

"Had a talk with you, did she?" Jake replied. "She told me you beat up my son, and I ought to scalp you right here and now for that."

"I'm starting to wonder what she saw in you," Alan spat. "Were you this big a blockhead before you became the big chief?"

"I was definitely a fool, I'll give you that," Jake retorted. "It took me until that day 28 years ago to realise what I needed to do. I would have died for Neytiri, and when both her father and Tsu'tey died, the Omaticaya needed a leader. I was proud to be chosen to unite them once more."

"Really?" Alan said, his voice full of venom. "Were you also so proud of the fact that you basically left the human race in the lurch? Were you proud of just letting them get slaughtered by the Covenant?"

"You weren't here," Jake spat. "You didn't see with your own eyes how men like Quaritch would have happily committed genocide for the sake of their war. He even murdered one of my best friends; one of my best human friends. I wanted nothing more to do with such a diseased race."

"You really are full of shit, aren't you?" Tom chimed in, raising his rifle. "I oughta-"

As he raised his rifle, the sound of the Na'vi tightening their bowstrings was audible. Alan raised a hand, cautioning Tom and the others while also drawing his own revolver.

"Ought to what?" Jake retorted. "Have you forgotten that you're trespassing on our most sacred grounds, are surrounded and have twenty arrows pointing at you? Just surrender quietly and we'll grant you all quick and merciful deaths."

At first, Alan was as tempted as Tom was to launch himself right at Jake, but he held himself in. An attack was just what the Avatar would be expecting, and he would know how to deal with that. This required a different approach.

Alan thought hard. He tried to recall what Kiryuu had written in his notes. The first step to getting out of any tight situation was to identify the source of the problem. Jake Sully was the problem; that much was obvious. However, it did not mean that he was also the solution. He recalled something Kiryuu had noted, a question that always had to be answered:

"_What is the one thing your opponent doesn't want to happen in the next five minutes?"_

In a flash, Alan realised what he had to do, though he did not like the plan that was forming in his head. This site was obviously important to the Na'vi, and he had a good idea as to why. He snapped the chamber in his revolver until it was in the correct position, then aimed the gun at a spot above his head. When he squeezed the trigger and fired, what emerged was not a bullet, but instead an enormous fireball which exploded into the air above the canyon. The Na'vi gasped in horror at the bright, burning flames. Slowly and resolutely, as the sudden light from the flames died away, Alan pointed his weapon directly at the Tree of Souls. His actions had the desired effect, for now Jake was starting to look very worried.

"That..." the Avatar stammered. "That's..."

"Technomancy," Alan finished, his expression grave. "If you remember that, you'll remember that it's outlawed on Earth. We're not on Earth though, are we?"

"You wouldn't...!" Jake shouted, his eyes widening in alarm as he realised what Alan was intending to do. "This tree is our most sacred site!" As he spoke, he pulled his long braid around in front of him, and parted some of the hairs on the tip. Alan now saw a set of tiny, flesh-coloured tentacles emerging from the tip.

"This is how we speak to everything on Pandora!" Jake continued. "Everything on this planet is connected. The plants, the animals... Everything! It all returns to the planet after it has gone, and the Tree of Souls lets us communicate with Eywa and the ancestors! They still survive, as part of Pandora!"

At once, Alan's expression contorted. He was struggling to hold back a burst of laughter that had threatened to escape.

"Bullshit," he said.

"I didn't believe it at first, either!" Jake said, whipping his braid back behind him. "Not until I experienced it myself. I'm not bullshitting you here! This tree is what lets us speak with Eywa and the ancestors. If it's destroyed, we'll lose everything that means something to us! It could even cause irreversible damage to all of Pandora! Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"Saving the human race from the Covenant's killing spree didn't mean anything to you, apparently," Alan spat. "Why the fuck should destroying your precious Na'vi's culture matter to me?" At this, Jake hissed angrily.

"You sound just like Quaritch..." he snarled.

"That's better than being a wanker," Alan retorted. "Right now though, all that matters to me is that I get these people safely out of here, and you're stopping me from doing that. Obviously this tree means something to you, so I can see this going two ways. If I can burn this tree down before your tribe gets us, we win. If not, of course, we lose." He held his grip on the gun more tightly, his eyes narrowed, his expression resolute.

"Well, you tree-hugging creep..." he snarled. "Do you feel lucky?"

0

Everything was tense for several seconds. None of those close to the tree seemed to know what was to be said. The Na'vi whispered furiously among themselves, awaiting orders from their chieftain. Alan continued to glare at Jake, his gun still pointed right at the Tree of Souls and ready to ignite it at any moment. To break the silence, Alan repeated his ultimatum.

"Call off your tribe, or I burn this tree down!" he said loudly enough for everyone to hear. Jake glared at him with an expression of fear, clearly worried about the fire-spitting Technomantic revolver. However, his expression contorted and became one of anger.

"Fine..." he snarled. "If you wanna play hardball..." He suddenly let out a Na'vi battle shriek and charged straight at Alan. The mutant was caught by surprise and was knocked backwards by Jake's tackle. The gun slipped from his grasp and dropped into the midst of the roots.

Meanwhile, the Na'vi surrounding the site decided to open fire. Thinking fast, Aeko dropped a portable shield generator which he had brought with him, and he, Tom and Bishop dived behind the glowing blue shield as it formed. Na'vi arrows impacted against it, cracking and splintering as they did so. Aeko and Tom fired back at the Na'vi as they tried to move to a better position. Two of them were cut down by the bullets and plasma fire, but as the rest retaliated the shield's blue glow began to turn red, indicating that it wasn't going to hold out much longer.

Alan, meanwhile, had managed to pull himself together long enough to grab his whip from its holster. It too had Technomantic properties, and when Alan let the line fall free it glowed a vivid blue colour, and crackled with sparks like a Sangheili energy sword. He rolled out of the way as Jake tried to skewer his head with the spear. The two traded blows, with Alan cracking the whip to keep Jake at bay while Jake swung with the spear.

_This is all my fault_, Alan thought, as he caught a glimpse of his companions pinned down behind the deteriorating shield. _I should have destroyed that tree when I had the chance. This is what I get for hesitating!_

After a few seconds, Alan noticed that, while Jake did have some skill, his age was beginning to catch up with him, and he made obvious telegraphs when he was about to make a large swing with the spear. Timing his move carefully, Alan slid under the spear as Jake swung it horizontally again, and managed to get in close. He lashed out with the whip, striking Jake dead-centre in the chest. His armour softened the blow slightly even as the whip cut it apart like tissue paper, but the cut formed was still long and agonising to Jake, who collapsed onto the roots and clutched his chest to try and stop the blood escaping.

Breathing hard, Alan crossed over to where his gun had fallen and grabbed it, holstering his whip. Jake watched helplessly as Alan crossed to the tree and began to raise his gun once again. There was only one thing he could do if he hoped to get himself and the others out of this alive.

"I don't want to do this," Alan said gravely, "but it's the only way I can end this madness!"

"No!" Jake shouted, panicked. He suddenly shouted out words in his native tongue, addressing the Na'vi in the shadows.

"Everyone, hold your fire!" Bishop suddenly shouted. "He just told his tribe to stand down!"

Alan gasped. He had been on the very verge of squeezing the trigger; his finger was clenched tightly around it. One twitch would have pulled it all the way, and the tree would be engulfed in flames. He turned to see the Na'vi retreating, slinking away into the shadows. Jake continued to lie amidst the roots, still clutching his wound, as Aeko retrieved the shield generator.

"Alright," Jake said sullenly. "You're free to go from here. However, once you leave this canyon, you'd better pray there's a ship waiting for you at the other end. The Omaticaya will hunt you to the ends of Pandora. There's nowhere out there in that jungle that you can hide. You have made an enemy today with this insult." His lips curled into a nasty sneer, and for a moment Alan was sorely tempted to shoot him there and then. Instead, he consoled himself by pointing his gun at the Tree of Souls again, causing Jake's expression to turn sour faster than a changing traffic light.

"Don't tempt me," the mutant snarled, a tone of disgust filling every syllable. "Just don't tempt me."

With that, he turned and marched around the Tree of Souls to the other side of the clearing. The others followed him to another path that led away from this site. Sacred or not, Alan was glad to be away from there, and away from one of the hardest decisions he had ever had to make in his life. As sorely tempted as he had been to make that tree burn, at the end of the day he wasn't sure if he wanted to be responsible for the destruction of an entire culture, no matter how idiotic it was to him. Besides, he knew he could never let Jake have the satisfaction of being proven right.

"Jesus..." Tom breathed as the glow from the Tree of Souls started to fade. "Is that what the Avatar program did to people? Turned them bat-shit bonkers?"

"Who knows," Alan muttered, "or cares?"

"I quite agree," Aeko chimed in. "We should be focusing more on getting back to the ship alive. We only earned a temporary reprieve."

Knowing that there was truth to Aeko's words, the group decided to pick up the pace. After several minutes of running without incident, the group finally emerged into a large clearing in the midst of the trees. Everyone stayed on the alert, peering around them into the trees and expecting an ambush. Alan rotated the barrel in his gun to a new setting, one which he really wanted to try out on any Na'vi that crossed them.

The welcome and familiar sound of the Phantom's engines could soon be heard overhead. As the group looked up, the ship sped into view. However, they saw that its plasma cannons were blazing, trying desperately to shoot down the swarms of flying creatures that were coming at it. Some scattered, but others were able to latch themselves onto the hull and begin trying to tear it apart, and the ship buffeted from side to side trying to throw them off.

One of the flying creatures broke off from the group and suddenly dived straight at the four on the ground. Alan barely had time to register that what he had seen were not birds at all. They were dragons, or at least creatures that resembled dragons, larger than a bear, each with four wings and in vivid colours, piloted by a Na'vi wearing a headband with eye-guards, like goggles. Unlike the dragons Alan had seen on Earth they did not seem to be sentient, but he saw a cord stemming from the dragon connected to the Na'vi's braid. The rider was literally plugged into the steed.

Of course, he didn't have time to admire these details, as he and the others pressed themselves flat against the ground. The sharp talons of the dragon stretched out for them, missing them by inches. A sharp wind swept through the area as the dragon passed over their heads. Quickly, Alan spun round and fired a shot with his revolver. This time, what looked like a large ball of electricity was launched, and by a stroke of luck it slammed into the back of the ascending dragon. Both rider and dragon started to tumble back to the ground, knocked unconscious by the crackling lightning, and soon went crashing into a tree. Alan was sure that they were alive, but he was not willing to bet on a soft landing.

"Thanks, Manda," he muttered. In spite of this small victory, however, the rest of the dragons continued to swarm the Phantom, and Alan was sure they would not survive if the ship was forced to retreat again. He looked around at the others, who all seemed resolved to go down fighting if it came to that.

All of a sudden plasma shots were fired from somewhere in the sky on Alan's right. The shots flew at the Phantom, but missed it, instead causing the dragons to scatter. Looking in the direction the shots came from, Alan was relieved to see the _Serenity_ come charging through the skies towards the stricken Phantom, plasma cannons blazing. Its movement was rather shaky, as if the pilot did not have much confidence in their flying ability. It shot past the Phantom and swooped down towards the ground. At first Alan thought it was going to knock them down, but the ship managed to come to a stop in front of them. As the ship hovered so close to the ground, the jets lifted up grass and dirt all around them, and the group had to back away to avoid being blasted off their feet.

Even as the ship hovered, it lowered the large ramp leading into the airlock. Without hesitation, the group scrambled on board, and the ramp started to rise even before everyone was completely inside; Alan had to scramble over the edge and slide down into the airlock. As soon as the ramp was sealed shut, Bishop activated the filtration system and the artificial gravity, even as the ship suddenly lurched skywards, almost throwing everyone off their feet. At last the metal doors into the cargo bay opened and all four ran inside, with Alan, Tom and Aeko peeling off their air masks.

"Who the hell's flying this thing?" Alan called; as far as he knew, Bishop was the only one who could actually pilot a Firefly. He ran up to the flight deck, closely followed by the others, and found Alistair sat at the pilot's controls. The ship was now blasting skyward, with the night sky filling up the view of the windows, though the Phantom could be seen ahead of them, providing cover fire. José and Rachel were at the turret controls. The former ODST was in his element, manipulating the controls as if he had been born into them, picking out and shooting any red markers on the holographic targeting displays that came too close.

"¡Beza mi culo, pendejo!" he shouted, as another red mark went wheeling away from the ship. Rachel, meanwhile, looked much less comfortable at the controls of a gun, and only took half-hearted pot-shots. Finally the marks on the scanners faded away as the ships went too high for the Na'vi to follow. When all sound outside the _Serenity_ faded away, Alan knew that at last they were safe.


	5. Space Cowboys

**Space Cowboys**

"We did it..." Alistair breathed in a faint voice. "We're clear of the atmosphere..." The griffin-like gargoyle staggered to his feet, and Bishop took his place in the pilot's chair.

"_Serenity,"_ a voice suddenly said from the communicator. _"Remain behind us. We'll guide you to the Transcending Vigilance."_

"Roger," Bishop replied. He began to steer the ship so that it followed the Phantom. Both Tom and Aeko were gazing at Alistair with expressions of great shock.

"Please don't leave the ship again," Alistair said pleadingly to Bishop.

"I would not worry about that," Bishop replied calmly. "After the events of today, I am not so eager to set foot on an alien planet again. Still, that was not bad for your first combat flight."

"What took you guys so long, anyway?" Alan asked.

"Oh, we had to wait for Alistair to wake up!" Rachel explained, moving away from the turret controls. José followed, though his expression clearly showed he was not pleased to see Aeko again.

"He was still sleeping even after it went dark!" the engineer continued.

"Oh, leave it out," Alistair said, pleadingly. "Gargoyles get jet-lag too, you know!"

"So this is a living gargoyle..." Aeko breathed, turning to Tom. "You did not say you had creatures such as this on Earth!"

"I... I really didn't know..." Tom stammered. He shook himself, trying to snap himself out of his apparent shock. Instead, he took to gazing around at the flight deck. "So this is an actual Firefly? Man, I know someone who's going to geek out over this. He loves all the old Earth ships. I think he'll explode with joy when he sees this baby in the hangar."

"Excuse me," Alistair said, interrupting and looking at Tom and Aeko. "I don't mean to be rude, but what the hell happened when I was asleep? Who are you two?"

"I think you'd better sit down, Alistair," Alan said, smirking. "It's quite a story."

0

In the length of time it took for Tom, Aeko and the _Serenity_ crew to exchange pleasantries and give their various accounts of their misadventure on Pandora, the ship reached the orbiting _Transcending Vigilance_. Already the large cruiser was pointed away from the planet, ready to leave once the two ships were safely on board. The presence of the cruiser's Shipmaster on board guaranteed the _Serenity_'s access, and soon the ship was landing in the large hangar bay, alongside the Phantom. It was not as cavernous a space as the one on the _Shadow of Intent_ had been, but it was still roomy enough for both ships to fit comfortably inside.

As the ramp lowered, all of the crew and passengers stepped off. Even José raised no protest at being on board a Sangheili vessel again, apparently having resigned himself to the fact that this was one argument he would never win. He got his first big shock, however, when he saw that the majority of the crew running around the hangar and tending to the two craft were humans. He pointed this out to Tom, hardly daring to believe it.

"This ship technically belongs to the UNSC," Tom explained, grinning. "It has done since Telek gave it to us, and as such humans make up the majority of the crew. Of course, since we've done a bunk, I doubt the UNSC will be so pleased to see us again. Anyway, the only Elites on board are Aeko's Special Operations unit and a bridge crew who work the controls we can't reach."

"Talking of which," Aeko said, "I had better return to my unit and give them a debriefing. I will see you later, Shipmaster."

"Roger," Tom nodded, and Aeko departed towards the Phantom, where his squad was gathering.

"So who kitted out your ship anyway?" Tom continued, peering at the _Serenity_. "I don't recall reading about Fireflies packing heat."

"Otto set us up," Alan explained. "I would say you weren't supposed to know that, but I doubt anyone on this ship cares."

"Hey," Tom chuckled, "if you don't tell the High Council, I won't. Otto's an Elite of his word; he won't snitch on you."

"Tom!" a booming voice suddenly called from the other end of the hangar, making everyone jump. They looked around to see a large, white-armoured Sangheili running across the hangar to them. Stopping in front of Tom, he suddenly bent down and scooped up the human in a hug that looked positively back-breaking.

"Xovu..." Tom said, gasping. "Ow..."

"Sorry, Shipmaster," the Sangheili known as Xovu said apologetically, setting Tom back down. "I was just so worried those smurfy-cats were gonna kill you!"

"Well, they didn't," Tom replied shakily, clutching his side. "All thanks to these guys here." He turned to indicate Alan and the others, who had watched the scene with great amusement. All except José, whose eyes were almost bugging out of his head and his mouth was wide open as if he was trying to fit a grapefruit in it. The idea of a friendly Sangheili seemed to have scared him more than the idea of a hostile one.

"Guys," Tom continued, "this is Xovu 'Nohat, my First Mate. Xovu, this is the crew of the _Serenity_-"

He tailed off, as Xovu didn't seem to be paying much attention to him. Instead, he was gazing at the _Serenity_ with wide, shining eyes. He walked around to the side of it and brushed his two fingers against the hull, his mandibles open in what Alan assumed was supposed to be a look of great awe.

"Is this what I think it is?" Xovu asked Tom excitedly.

"Yup," Tom nodded. "That's a genuine Firefly. Not many of those flitting around the Black these days."

"Oh, wow!" Xovu exclaimed, looking like an excited child. "It looks like it's been fitted out with our own technology as well. Still, a genuine Firefly! I mean, I've seen the pictures, but I never thought I'd get to see the genuine article!"

"I like him," Rachel said warmly, while Tom chuckled.

"Xovu loves his old human ships," Tom said.

"He'd love Lofwyr's private hangar then," Alan smirked. "That's where I nicked it from." It wasn't entirely true – he had only _tried_ to steal it – but he reasoned that Tom didn't need to know the details. Tom, meanwhile, burst out laughing.

"You're a man – well, changeling – after Telek's own heart," he chuckled.

"So that makes you the Shipmaster then?" Xovu asked, addressing Alan.

"It does," Alistair said, smirking.

"You've got to give me a tour of this ship sometime!" Xovu said excitedly, marching towards Alan. For a moment, the mutant was afraid the over-emotional Sangheili was going to hug him too.

"Um... sure..." Alan responded, a bit taken aback.

"You can probably do that while we're on our way to the fleet," Tom enthused. "It'll be a couple of hours in slip-space before we get there. Oh, Christ..." he groaned. "I suppose we'd better get up to the bridge and let 'em know we're ready to leave this god-forsaken place behind."

"You got it, Shipmaster," Xovu said.

"You guys," Tom said, addressing the _Serenity_ crew, "are free to roam the ship for a while. Mi casa es su casa. Any of you hungry? We've got a well-stocked galley on board."

"Please tell me you have real food," Alan said pleadingly. "I'm sick to the back teeth of protein bricks."

"I'm sure our resident chefs can whip up something nice," Tom chuckled. "Anyway, I'm sure one of the crew knows their way there; I swear they know this ship better than I do."

"Oh, don't be like that," Xovu said, jokingly. "You've been doing well these past two weeks. We haven't had a crash, at least, or run into anything more dangerous than those overgrown pixies." He turned to address the _Serenity_ crew. "Hey, new guys! Thanks for saving the Shipmaster's life!"

"Uh, anytime," Alan replied.

"Come on, Xovu," Tom said. "Let's get this old tub on the road. I bet Wago hasn't missed us at all."

0

For the next two hours, the _Transcending Vigilance_ flew through the swirling portal of slip-space. The crew tried to keep themselves entertained in various ways. As it turned out, the ship was a hive of activity, and Alan wondered how it was able to sustain all of the crew. They must have had a large horde of supplies on board. They must also have visited a surviving human colony or two at some point, for upon following Tom's suggestion of going for food, the crew had been pleasantly surprised to find that genuine bacon and fried eggs were available. As the group tucked into their meal, Alan idly wondered what sort of diet the Sangheili had. He made a mental note to observe them during a meal-time. Even from his cursory glance he could tell a lot of modifications had to have been made to make the galley suitable for humans.

Xovu got his tour of the _Serenity_ during the trip. Rachel was only too happy to oblige, and seemed thrilled to have found a fellow Firefly enthusiast. José, meanwhile, was making every effort to avoid being in the same room as any Sangheili on board.

Alan just left everyone to their own devices while he spoke to some of the other crew. Both the human and Sangheili members on board seemed rather perturbed by his presence, however, as they had never seen a creature like him before. Alan was too used to this to care by this point. As well as Tom, Aeko and Xovu, he was able to speak to Colonel Acanthus Davis, who was the commanding officer of the human forces on board the ship, with all of the Marines and even several squads of ODSTs at his disposal. He seemed a light-hearted sort for a commanding officer. Alan also noticed that the majority of the equipment and vehicles on board the ship were of UNSC origin, rather than Covenant, which prompted him to ask what would happen if they ever returned to Earth with all of the stolen property.

"Assuming it hasn't been wrecked by the time we get back," Davis replied, "I expect we'll all be court-marshaled. Piracy's a bad habit we all picked up from Telek and his gang."

Tom had gotten curious about Alan's story and the reason for him being so far out in space, just as Otto had. Bishop had only told him very little. So Alan spent most of the trip on the bridge, relating his story – including the experiments that had brought him to his present state - to Tom and anyone else who wanted to listen. It was not a story he was particularly fond of telling, but since it looked like he would be working closely with Tom from now on, he decided that full disclosure would work out better in the long run. Tom made for a good audience; he nodded and gasped at all the right moments. After Alan finished telling the story of what happened in Chicago, Tom nodded.

"So that's how you met Cujo?" Tom asked. "That's why you came out here?"

"Yeah," Alan replied. "I figured if anybody could help me find Kiryuu, it would be him."

"Funny that he never mentioned you before..." Tom mused. "Why would that be?"

"I seem to recall asking him not to," Alan replied. "Kiryuu kept me off the UNSC's radar, so I thought I could trust Cujo to keep me off the Sangheili's. We didn't start on the best of terms, I have to admit, but out here I don't think there's anyone I'd trust more. In spite of the objections of a certain crew member..."

"He'll get used to it," Tom said, waving an arm dismissively. He too had noticed José's avoidance of the Sangheili. "I didn't think I'd work so well with Elites when I started working with 'em. Now me and Xovu are like peas in a pod."

"Just as long as you don't expect me to start kissing you," Xovu chimed in.

"You could try that on José," Alan said, smirking.

"Yeah, I'm sure that'll go down well," Xovu laughed. "He might see that there are worse things than merely working with Sangheili, after all."

It was then that a faint alarm sounded.

"Shipmaster," one of the Sangheili bridge crew stated from the controls below the central podium, "we are approaching the fleet."

"Roger that," Tom said. He motioned for Alan to approach the side of the podium near the large viewing port. A few seconds later, the swirling slip-space vortex abruptly vanished, leaving Alan with a sight that caused his eyes to go wide. In the midst of the star-field, he saw four other large capital ships of Covenant design. One of them was an enormous assault carrier like the _Shadow of Intent_, while another was a Reverence-class cruiser like Tom's.

"Say hello to the Fleet Shadow of Fury," Tom said proudly. "Well, half of it, anyway. Otto has the rest. There are supposed to be six of us, but like I said Telek took off with his own ship, the _Shadow of Darkness_." He pointed at the assault carrier. "That big bulk over there's the _Regret and Reconciliation_, Wago 'Tawun's pride and joy. I wouldn't worry about him too much; that ship's definitely compensating for something." At this, Xovu burst out laughing. Tom, meanwhile, pointed at the smaller Destroyer-class ship.

"That's the _Holy Justice_," Tom explained. "Mitsu 'Kimam's the Shipmaster of that one. He may be one of the smallest Elites here, but he packs a hell of a wallop in that frame of his.

"That cruiser over there," he continued, pointing at the other smaller vessel, "is the _Righteous Fury_, captained by Tulsa 'Durosh. He had a little brother, Tulsa 'Yurom, but..." He went silent for a moment, sighing. Xovu too had a pained expression, and Alan had a good idea about what became of Tulsa 'Yurom. It seemed that families on the Sangheili side had also suffered greatly during the war.

"I see..." he said, reasoning that it was best not to pry. "I'm sorry."

"Anyway," Tom said, shaking himself, "that ship over there might look familiar to you." He pointed at the other Reverence-class cruiser, which was leading the fleet.

"It certainly does," Alan said. "That's the _Divine Journey_!"

"Got it in one," Tom said. "Cujo should be on there now."

"Shipmaster," one of the bridge crew suddenly said. "We're receiving a transmission from the _Divine Journey_."

"Speak of the devil," Tom chuckled. "Put him on-screen." A few seconds later, the familiar face of Cujo 'Mentatal, Shipmaster of the _Divine Journey_, appeared on a holographic display over the viewing port. The first thing Alan noticed was that he was now back in the golden Zealot harness he wore as Shipmaster, as opposed to the silver and white assault harness he had worn in Chicago.

"_Welcome home, Tom,"_ Cujo said. _"I assume Telek wasn't on Pandora either?"_

"No dice, I'm afraid," Tom replied. "The trip wasn't a total bust, though. I did bring some friends back with me." He beckoned Alan closer to him, presumably to be within the visual range of Cujo's monitor. When the Sangheili saw the mutant, his eyes widened in disbelief.

_"Well, I'll be damned..."_ he said in an amused tone. _"If it isn't the mini-Godzilla."_

"Erm... surprise?" Alan said, with a crooked smile.

"_Well, this is out of left-field,"_ Cujo said. _"Why don't you come on over to my ship and tell me what you're doing out here? Tom, you'd better come too so you can deliver your full report before we move on."_

"Roger that," Tom said. "We'll be coming over in Captain Tyler's ship. We'll see you shortly." With that, Cujo signed off. Tom sighed and shook his head. "And here I was hoping we could keep my lapse of judgment confined to this ship."

"Ah, never mind," Xovu said, with an odd grin. "Let's just be thankful that Wago wasn't with us. We can't afford to give him any ammunition, can we?"

"Alistair," Alan said into his commlink. "Get the others and meet us by the _Serenity_. We're heading out to see the neighbours."

_"Understood, Captain"_ Alistair replied. _"We're on our way."_

0

Later, the _Serenity_ left the _Transcending Vigilance_ and flew out amongst the large capital ships. Flying amongst such huge vessels of such elegant design, Alan felt positively dwarfed. He imagined that this was similar to some insect's perspective as it flew down a busy city street. When he thought about that, the Firefly class being so-called seemed very appropriate. Looking out at the star-strewn blackness of space, he also realised just how unfamiliar space looked now. He was never that great at astronomy, but even he had been able to point out a few familiar constellations in the night sky on Earth. Out here, he saw no familiar shapes.

Within minutes, the shape of the _Divine Journey_ loomed above them, and the ship was soon landing in one of the hangars. A group of Sangheili was waiting in the hangar, like some form of welcoming committee. The _Serenity_'s ramp lowered, and Alan, Tom and the rest of the crew stepped out onto the glossy lavender floor. As they did so, a gold-armoured Sangheili approached them; a towering figure, even by Sangheili standards. Alan grinned when he realised who it was.

"Alan Tyler," said Dovi 'Canthon, Cujo's Field Master. "Welcome back."

"It's good to be back, Field Master," Alan replied.

Dovi nodded, and took a moment to look at the _Serenity_ and the assorted rag-tag crew members. He had never seen anything like this gathering even during the war, and wondered how they could possibly have made it this far. Behind him, one of the other Sangheili voiced what he was thinking, muttering "Reknuj taht ni yaw siht lla emac werc noteleks siht?" to another warrior next to him.

"I see you acquired your own ship and crew," Dovi said, deciding to take the polite route.

"You noticed that, eh?" Alan said, smiling wryly.

"Am I to address you as Shipmaster from now on then?" Dovi asked in a similarly wry tone.

"Only on special occasions," Alan replied, smirking. "It sounds more dignified than 'jackass hoodlum' anyway." Dovi chuckled.

"Cujo has requested the presence of both yourself and Shipmaster Jimenez," he said, before addressing the rest of the crew. "He mentions that you are all welcome onto the bridge, of course, as long as you mind your manners. Follow me." With that, he led the small group along the darkened corridors towards the bridge. Some of the Sangheili they passed nodded curtly, apparently remembering Alan's last visit to the ship. José kept looking around nervously, as if he expected to be attacked at any minute. He seemed to calm slightly when Rachel, perhaps sensing that anything could set their gunner off, took his hand into hers.

"Just don't get any ideas," she muttered to him.

The party soon reached the cavernous bridge, complete with a raised command platform with a ramp leading up to it. The guards in front of the ramp stood apart to allow Dovi, Alan and Tom to pass, but would not let any of the other _Serenity_ crew to do so.

"Only the Shipmasters need to be present for the debriefing," Dovi said. "You may remain on the bridge, but don't touch anything. The last thing we want is to be sent spinning into a supernova."

Dovi had intended this to be a joke, but when José was sure that the large Field Master was out of earshot he muttered "Chupaverga."

Alan and Tom, meanwhile, ascended to the command platform, where they found Cujo waiting for them. He and Tom traded salutes, then he shook Alan's hand, smiling.

"Long time no see, Alan," he said. "I didn't expect to see you out in the Black. I remember Kiryuu Knight telling you to enjoy your remaining days on Earth."

"That was back when it looked like Earth wasn't going to last much longer," Alan shrugged. "I left a few days after the memorial; I would have got up here sooner, but it took me a while to get a ship. If I'd known you guys had the same idea I had, I would have hitchhiked."

"It's lucky you found your own way then," Cujo said, grinning. "I don't pick up hitchhikers." He turned to Tom. "Well, let's hear your report then, Tom."

For the next several minutes, Cujo listened patiently while Tom told of the events on Pandora from his perspective. He even mentioned the embarrassing manner of his capture by the Na'vi, to which Cujo merely shrugged.

"Let that be a lesson though," he said, in a mock-serious voice. "Cute critters are evil. Don't worry; I won't tell Wago if you don't."

After Tom had finished, Cujo addressed Alan.

"So how did you get mixed up in all this?" he asked. "Your Firefly shouldn't have got this far in such a small amount of time."

"You can thank Otto 'Gamam for that," Alan said. "We ran into him about a week after we left Earth. We'd still be drifting about in the Sol system if it weren't for the slip-space drive he supplied. Mind you, we didn't get far before it blew our conductors."

"Let's just keep Otto's involvement amongst ourselves," Cujo said. "I'd rather not see him get in trouble over his hand in your success."

"My lips are sealed, Cujo," Alan said. "Anyway, we set down on Pandora to get the materials to make a suitable part. We need to make a pit-stop to smelt the Unobtainium ore we salvaged. Bishop and Rachel reckon they can make the part we need once that's done. I just hope the trouble the Na'vi gave us was worth it."

"Not a friendly race, I take it?" Cujo said. He had heard what Tom had said, but also wanted to hear Alan's view.

"Nope," Alan replied. "I may be speaking out of place here, but their whole system sounds like a load of wacko jacko. It reminds me of this old comedy song I heard once," he continued, in a mock sing-song voice, "'I talk to the trees... that's why they put me away...'." Cujo and Tom stifled a snort of laughter.

"We did learn one thing though," Tom then chimed in. "Seems an old acquaintance of ours was on Pandora at some point God-knows-how-long ago. Might go some way to explaining why they don't like visitors. I'll tell you about it later."

"Even so," Cujo said, still chuckling, "from the sounds of it, we should hope we don't have to go back and annoy them even more."

"Surely that's a _good_ reason to go back?" Alan asked. Cujo chuckled again. He now regretted not going to Pandora himself and finding out if these Na'vi were as crazy as Alan and Tom said they were.

"So Alan," Cujo said after he had managed to calm down, "you mentioned you had the 'same idea as us'. I assume you're also looking for Kiryuu Knight?"

"Got it in one," Alan said. "Otto told me that Telek had the same notion, but Tom said he's buggered off elsewhere. You have any idea where he went?"

"I really can't say, Alan," Cujo sighed. "A few days after we left Earth, he told us all that I was in charge while he was gone, and then he took off on his own. We've been on his trail ever since, which hasn't been easy when you have to scout every planet manually for some sign of him. He's probably got some new hair-brained scheme into his head, but if I find out he's only after a new batch of rum there'll be hell to pay."

"Rum?" Alan asked, dubiously. "Who does he think he is? Long John Silver?"

"You can ask him yourself, if we ever find him," Cujo replied, wearily. "Our mission's become 'find the people on the mission'."

"Which is why I'm going with you," Alan suddenly said. "We're all in the same boat, right? I figure you can use an extra hand."

"That's true," Cujo said. "There could even be places a much less conspicuous Firefly can go where a Covenant capital ship can't. Do you also speak for your crew?"

"I do," Alan nodded. "They wouldn't be with me now if we didn't all agree to this." From down below, he thought he could hear José about to protest, but he was quickly silenced; Alistair had clamped a talon around his mouth. Cujo rose up slowly, fixing Alan with a piercing look.

"If your objectives remain the same as ours," he said, "then you are welcome to join us. However, I want your solemn promise that you all obey orders to the last detail, will not willingly endanger our chances, and assist us in any way you can to find the lost President and Supreme Commander. Do you understand?"

Alan breathed in slowly. It seemed that he had to make a lot of promises to different people lately. He had been forced to promise Lofwyr that he would not return to Earth without Kiryuu, and he had promised Otto that he would look for Telek. Now he had to make another promise. After a moment to steady his nerves, he nodded.

"I give you my word," he said. Cujo nodded, seeming satisfied that Alan was being honest.

"Then," he said, "I might as well make some attempt at formality." He coughed a little, apparently clearing his throat. "Alan Tyler, Shipmaster of the _Serenity_, I welcome you, your crew, and your ship, into the Fleet Shadow of Fury." He gave a salute, which Alan returned.

"I'm sure it's going to be a hell of a ride," he said.

**THE END**


End file.
